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Spiritual Victory: 



Thoughts upon the Higher Christian Life. 



BY 

WILLIAM W. "PATTON. 






BOSTON : 
CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY, 

CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE, 
BEACON STREET. 



/ i7*f- 



'V'fA 



The Lir.K kv 

WASHINGTON 



, 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

The Congregational Publishing Society, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Stereotyped by 
C. J. Peters & Son, 73 Federal Street, Boston. 



PREFACE. 



'T^HE substance of the following chapters 
will be recognized by some as having 
appeared, in another form, in the religious 
journal which for several years was under 
the editorial care of the writer. They indi- 
cate a main object, which he kept in view 
while serving Christ and the Church in that 
capacity, and were originally intended to pre- 
sent Christian duty and privilege in a man- 
ner at once discriminating and attractive. 
The instruction which inquiring souls seemed 
to gain from them, and the fact that they 
exhibit certain truths in other than their or- 
dinary aspect, may be a sufficient warrant for 
their revision and repubHcation in the present 
form. May the blessing of Him by whose 
grace '' we are more than conquerors through 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

him that loved us," and who "shall bruise 
Satan under our feet shortly," attend this 
effort to show his people the methods and 
the certainty of Spiritual Victory ! 

W. W. P. 

Chicago, III., May i, 1874. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. „^^, 

PAGB 

Christian Life a Warfare 9 

CHAPTER II. 
The Victory Inspired 18 

CHAPTER III. 
Asceticism is not Victory 27 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Victory Described . . . . . .36 

CHAPTER V. 
Realizing for Whom we fight . . . .47 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Captain of our Salvation . • . .55 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Great Adversary 63 

CHAPTER VIII. 
A Gospel of Victory 74 

CHAPTER IX. 

Victory by Faith 84 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

PAGB 

Philosophy of Faith's Vjctory . , . .96 

CHAPTER XI. 
Faith's Habit of Victory 106 



CHAPTER XII. 
Victory over Evil Habit 115 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Victory over Physical Habit 125 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Prayer a Legitimate Weapon 136 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Weapon Two-edged 47 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Weapon Tested 161 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Victory through Self-Denial . . • . • »73 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Victory through Sorrow 184 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Victory through Joy ....••• 195 

CHAPTER XX. 
Victory at 1 he Outposts 204 



CONTENTS. 7 

CHAPTER XXI. j,^Qg 

Continual Victory . . . . * * * 213 

CHAPTER XXn. 
Crises of the Campaign . . . . • .221 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Legal Experience a Defeat . • • • •231 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Victory over Pride 245 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Victory over Anxiety 255 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Victory over Sensitiveness 265 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
Victory in Detail 274 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Victory on the Field of Business .... 284 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
Victory according to Law . . . . '. 296 

CHAPTER XXX. 
The Final Vi ;to» v 304 



SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHRISTIAN LIFE A WARFARE. 

I .""VERY one must have noticed the 
-*~^ use which the Bible makes of the 
figure of war as setting forth our earth- 
ly experience. Probably nothing could 
more forcibly appeal to our imagination, 
and give us an idea of the difficulties 
which must be overcome in reaching 
purity and heaven. What is our nat- 
ural, unregenerate condition but one of 
subjection ? We are ruled over by our 
conqueror, the devil, " are taken captive 
by him at hisTwill," and, like ancient cap- 

9 



lO SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

tives in war, are sold into slavery, — "sold 
under sin,'' and "brought into captivity 
to the law of sin which is in our mem- 
bers." We are delivered from this thral- 
dom by Jesus Christ, the "Captain of 
our salvation," who "hath led captivity 
captive." He enrols us in his army, tells 
us to "fight the good fight of faith," 
to "endure hardness as a good soldier 
of Jesus Christ," and to remember that 
"no man that warreth entangleth him- 
self with the affairs of this life, that he 
may please him who hath chosen him to 
be a soldier." We are warned against 
"our adversary the devil," and told that 
if we " resist the devil, he will flee from 
us." It was this conception which led 
Paul to write to the Ephesians, "Take 
unto you the whole armor of God. . . . 
Stand, therefore, having your loins girt 



CHRISTIAN LIFE A WARFARE, ii 

about with truth, and having on the 
breastplate of righteousness, and your 
feet shod with the preparation of the 
gospel of peace; above all, taking the 
shield of faith, whereby ye shall be able 
to quench all the fiery darts of the 
wicked [one] ; and take the helmet of 
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 
which is the word of God." And so, a 
little before his death, on reviewing his 
Christian life, he said, " I have fought a 
good fight." And for us all, as at once 
a hint and an encouragement, the prom- 
ise is unto " him that overcometh." 

And how readily our prayers accept 
this figure, as setting forth our daily ex- 
perience ! We confess and deplore our 
weakness, our defeats, our fleeing before 
the enemy. We tell of the open as- 
saults and cunning stratagems of Satan. 



12 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

We supplicate divine aid in the conflict. 
We pray that we may have courage for 
life's battles, and that the Church may 
become " terrible as an army with ban- 
ners." And when we sing of the Chris- 
tian life we fall into the same strain. 
We say to others, — 

" Brethren, while we sojourn here, 
Fight we must, but should not fear." 

We call upon our souls to " gird the 
gospel armor on," and to think that 
"glittering robes for conquerors wait." 
We chide ourselves by the question, 
" Am I a soldier of the cross ? " And we 
sing, "Sure I must fight if I would 
reign." Would we animate fellow-saints 
to fidelity, we break out in the words,— 

" Stand up, stand up for Jesus, 
Ye soldiers pf the cross ! " 



CHRISTIAN LIFE A WARFARE, 13 

As we think of spiritual danger we ex- 
claim, " My soul, be on thy guard ! " And, 
in our desire for the world's salvation, 
we utter the wisH, — 

** Now be the gospel banner 
In every land unfurled.'* 

And so we go through life, talking to 
ourselves and to one another as if we 
were in a war ; as most truly we are. 

But our conception is ordinarily far 
below the reality. We need to rouse 
our imagination to a more vivid pictur- 
ing of spiritual facts, till we feel in the 
inmost soul how actual the conflict is, 
how sore the strife, how lasting the 
struggle, and yet how sure the victory. 
The new life is an entrance on a cam- 
paign which ends not till we pass 
through the gates of pearl. "The 



14 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, 
and the violent take it by force." All 
the evil tendencies and habits of the 
previous life of sin fight against the 
purpose of the convert to live for God. 

He carries out his purpose ; but it is 
by bearing down all inward opposition, 
in the name of Christ, and " crucifying 
the old man with the affections and 
lusts." His first victory is over himself. 
Then he learns that he is surrounded by 
spiritual foes, and that the very atmos- 
phere about his soul is full of rebellion 
against God. He is situated much as a 
citizen would have been during the late 
war, who should have returned to loyalty 
in the Southern States. He lives in a 
revolted world, and yet tries to be loyal 
to his King. He is not quite alone ; 
there are others like-minded ; but the 



CHRISTIAN LIFE A WARFARE, 15 

majority is with the ungodly. He is 
tempted to join the multitude, and to 
live as does the world at large. At 
least, may he not be allowed to keep his 
sentiments to himself, and avoid conflict 
with the opinions and practices of his 
neighbors ? If he may not relinquish 
the service of Christ, may he not make 
-a truce with the world ? No : Christ's 
enemies are also his enemies ; and he 
must " have no fellowship with the un- 
fruitful works of darkness, but rather 
reprove them." Victory for the truth, 
and not ease for himself, must be his 
care. A soldier has only to fight : none 
but the general can make a truce. 

But the worst of all is, that his chief 
antagonist is invisible, and is therefore 
difficult to manage, and apt to be for- 
gotten. Indeed, one of Satan's master- 



l6 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

pieces of success is, to make men dis- 
believe his existence, and to explain the 
numerous and explicit declarations of 
Scripture as figures of rhetoric, or as 
references to current superstitions. 
Alas 1 that there should be a diaboli- 
cally inspired exegesis of Scripture. But 
none the less do we "wrestle against 
principalities, against powers, against 
the rulers of the darkness of this world, 
against spiritual wickedness in high 
places." Oh for divine direction in this 
war! Where shall we learn how the 
battles are to be fought, and the victo- 
ries to be won ? In the closet, studying 
the Bible, and gaining a previous inspira- 
tion on our knees ; so that we shall be 
"more than conquerors through Him 
that hath loved us," and who shall 
"bruise Satan under our feet shortly." 



CHRISTIAN LIFE A WARFARE. 17 

" Pass on from strength to strength : 
Faint not, nor yield. 

With girded loins press on ; the goal is near : 
With ready sword fight God's great battle here : 
Wm thou the field 1 " 
8 



CHAPTER II. 

THE VICTORY INSPIRED. 

D ATTLES have usually been fought 
"^^^ under an inspiring influence. With 
some it has been that of patriotism, 
with others love of glory, with others 
desire of booty, with still others re- 
venge. Mere discipline will indeed 
accomplish wonders, and must consti- 
tute, ordinarily, the basis of success ; 
but the effective power of an army is 
immensely increased when an ardor 
possesses it which impels to action, and 
despises fear. The French have owed 
many of their military successes to their 
dash and enthusiasm. No doubt the 
legions of old Rome gained an inspi- 
i8 



THE VICTORY INSPIRED, 19 

ration from their national pride and re- 
peated successes, and were victorious 
because they fought under the assurance 
that they were invincible. Not seldom, 
in the heroic days, devotion to an idol- 
ized leader was all the inspiration 
needed to move men to deeds of great- 
est daring. 

There must be an inspiration in order 
to the victory of the Christian over his 
spiritual enemies. Holiness is no drudg- 
ery, though its habit, when formed, 
answers to the effect of military disci- 
pline. It is a joyous ardor in the ser- 
vice of God. It is a loving zeal for 
Christ, the Captain of our salvation. 
Love is always an inspiration. How it 
works in the mother, to do and dare in 
behalf of her offspring ! How it impels 
the betrothed and the wedded to act and 



20 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

to suffer for dear companions ! Who 
can describe what Jesus did for us under 
the inspiration of love ? And who can 
measure the answering power of affec- 
tion begotten by the thought in the soul 
of the saint? When men wondered at 
the labors and sacrifices of Paul, and 
suggested that he must be beside him- 
self, he explained the mystery by the 
simple and all-sufficient words, "The 
love of Christ constraineth us." That 
was his inspiration. 

The actual power of inspiration, in 
this as in other respects, is the Holy 
Spirit. At the time of the betrayal and 
crucifixion, the apostolic band was timid 
in the extreme. They meant well, and 
talked courageously ; but, when actual 
danger came, they all forsook their 
Master, and fled. Six weeks later they 



THE VICTORY INSPIRED, 21 

faced the multitude and the rulers, 
accused them of murdering the Mes- 
siah, and welcomed stripes and impris- 
onment. During the interval they had 
received the baptism of the Spirit, 
which wrought such faith and hope, 
such love and courage, such zeal and 
enthusiasm, as to overcome natural fear, 
and to make that a joy which once had 
been a dread. This is the office of the 
blessed Spirit, — to inspire every Chris- 
tian for his life-work, to be an inward 
power in the soul, to be a substitute to 
the Church for the inspiring visible 
presence of Jesus himself till at the 
end of the world he shall come in his 
glorious second advent. Such was the 
Master's promise : ^' I will pray the 
Father, and he shall give yoii another 
Comforter, that he may abide with you 



2! SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

forever." " He dwelleth with you, and 
shall be in you." " He will guide you 
into all truth." Because this is our 
hope, Paul beseeches us by " the love of 
the Spirit," cautions us to " quench not 
the Spirit," assures us that "the fruit 
of the Spirit is in all goodness and right- 
eousness and truth," and bids us to be 
" praying always with all prayer and 
supplication in the Spirit." True saints 
are those who " walk not after the flesh, 
but after the Spirit," who "mind the 
things of the Spirit," and in whom " the 
Spirit of God dwelleth." He is in us 
" the Spirit of adoption," and " beareth 
witness with our spirit, that we are the 
children of God." 

There is a sense of inspiration in the 
very knowledge of the fact that we have 
the perpetual presence of such wisdom, 



THE VICTORY rjsf SPIRED, 23 

power, and love. The idea of a divine 
Comforter ever within, — the revealer of 
truth, the bestower of grace, the inwork- 
ing spiritual life of the soul, as it were 
the Lord Jesus become an invisible 
guardian, — this of itself ennobles and 
animates the believer, when it fully 
possesses the mind. It brings God 
near, and makes him as an atmosphere 
to the soul, a source of perpetual health 
and vigor. Faith in such boundless aid 
near at hand, in a spiritual potency 
which accompanies us at every step, is 
natural and easy ; and thus the childlike, 
trustful spirit is begotten, which is the 
secret of all progress in piety. God 
afar off is not wholly an inoperative 
idea; but what is its inspiring power 
compared with that of God at hand, 
God within us ? This we realize as we 



24 SPIRITUAL VIC 7 OR Y, 

come to a proper conception of the 
presence and indwelling of the Com- 
forter. " Hereby know we that we dwell 
in him, and he in us, because he hath 
given us of his Spirit." 

But, while the Spirit works, in ways 
unknown to us, among the very springs 
of thought and feeling, strengthening, 
healing, vivifying, comforting, we are 
made conscious of inspirations from 
him as "the Spirit of truth," by the 
light poured upon the Scriptures, and by 
the quickening effect upon the mind of 
fresh views of the facts and doctrines of 
the Bible. One reason of the marvel- 
lous change in the apostles on the day 
of Pentecost lay in the clear and new 
ideas gained of the meaning of the 
Old Testament, with reference to tte 
Messiah. Now that they understood 



THE VICTORY INSPIRED, 25 

why Christ had died, — that it was to 
atone for sin, and to bring eternal life 
within the reach of lost men, — they felt 
joyfully and irresistibly moved to pro- 
claim the fact, and to face all danger in his 
behalf. And so it is with every Christian. 
He has the fulfilment of the Master's 
promise : " When he, the Spirit of truth, is 
come, ... he shall glorify me ; for he 
shall receive of mine, and show it unto 
you." What we need for victory is the in- 
spiration which comes from an assurance 
of our riches in Christ ; that through him 
we " can do all things ; " that he " is of 
God made unto us wisdom and right- 
eousness and sanctification and redemp- 
tion ; " so that we are " complete in him, 
who is the Head of all principality and 
power." Our prayer and faith should 
be, that the blessed Spirit would fill us 



26 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

with such a sense of Christ's love in 
the past and in the present, as shall 
overcome opposing influences. Then 
to serve him will be not bondage but 
liberty ; and we shall testify to the truth 
of his words, " My yoke is easy, and 
my burden is light." Then every battle 
will be a victory. 

" All bitterness is from ourselves : 
All sweetness is from Thee. 
Sweet God ! forevermore be Thou 
Fountain and fire in me." 



CHAPTER HI. 

ASCETICISM IS NOT VICTORY. 

VICTORY never means fleeing 1 /efore 
one's foes. No campaign could 
be pronounced triumphant which sur- 
rendered to the enemy part of the terri- 
tory in contest. When France made 
peace with Germany, ceding to the latter 
Alsace and Lorraine, every Frenchman 
hung his head. That national act ac- 
knowledged a terrible defeat ; and not a 
man on either side thought of calling it 
a French victory, even if the remainder 
of the land was thereby saved to France. 
And so, in our late civil war, had even a 
single State, Texas or Florida, for in- 
stance, been allowed to remain out of 

27 



28 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

the Union, the result would have bc,en 
recorded in history as an ill success of 
the Federal forces. The Union claimed 
every State, from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific, from the Lakes to the Gulf ; and 
victory meant the complete enforcement 
of that claim. 

And yet asceticism has the presumption 
to call itself spiritual victory, when it is 
nothing but signal defeat. It is in the 
position of a party in court which on a 
certain point confesses judgment, by 
ceasing to press its claim. For what is 
asceticism, but a retiring from the con- 
flict with sin, as to a part of the territory 
in dispute between God and the world 1 
It is a ceasing to claim and to use for 
God one part of the body, or one depart- 
ment of life. It is a change of moder- 
ation into abstinence, of virtue into 



ASCETICISM IS NOT VICTORY. 29 

inaction, of fight into flight God has 
bestowed upon us a wondrously con- 
trived body, with appetites and passions 
connected with the use of the various 
senses. This body is not miscalculated 
in any respect. It has not one super- 
fluous capacity of action, or of enjoy- 
ment. Spiritual victory recognizes and 
insists upon God's right to the use of all \ 
and it succeeds in dispossessing Satan 
everywhere, and in putting every power 
to virtuous use. But asceticism, shrink- 
ing from such a universal conflict as too 
diflicult and dangerous, recommends the 
saint to abandon altogether certain uses 
of the body, to forego utterly certain en- 
joyments, because temptation — ^that is, 
conflict — is connected with them. And it 
persuades the deluded person who listens 
to the deceptive plea, that such a sur^ 



30 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

render of the field is a victory over the 
world, the flesh, and the devil. Hence, 
early in the history of the Christian 
Church, asceticism preached the superior 
holiness of celibacy over marriage, and 
actually claimed for the former the vir- 
tue of chastity, which as properly belongs 
to the latter ; for there may be a chaste 
wife as truly as a chaste virgin. Thus 
also sprang up the idea of the perpetual 
virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus ; 
which has no word of support from 
Scripture, but rather certain plain inti- 
mations to the contrary. Thus was intro- 
duced the mischievous rule of celibacy 
for the clergy \ which made good ecclesi- 
astics, but poor pastors and corrupt men. 
Thus arose the various orders of monks 
and nuns, who, contrary to nature and 
the gospel, withdrew from secular em- 



ASCETICISM IS NOT VICTORY. 31 

ployments and family ties, under the false 
notion of a higher religious experience. 
Refusing God's gifts, and contravening 
the divine plan, were called peculiar 
piety. Retreating from married life, 
with whatever it might involve of temp- 
tation and discipline, was dignified with 
the name of conquest of evil. Precisely 
similar was the mistake as to bodily 
macerations. Those who would be saints 
were bidden to practise many and severe 
fasts, to wear coarse and irritating cloth- 
ing, to lie upon the ground, the floor, or 
hard and uncomfortable beds, to keep 
long vigils, to inflict stripes upon them- 
selves, and to avoid pleasant food. This 
proceeded upon the false assumption 
that a comfortable mode of life, if not 
wrong, was so surrounded by temptation 
that it should be renounced, to avoid dan- 



32 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, . 

ger to the soul. But where has God said 
that we are to avoid all danger ? And 
where is the place from which all danger 
can be excluded ? And in what passage 
is the Bible guilty of the absurdity of 
calling a retreat a victoiy ? 

There is less danger, in these days, 
that asceticism will take the extreme 
form just named, though Romanism still 
flourishes, and ritualism borrows approv- 
ingly its repressive exercises. Among 
spiritual Protestants the temptation is, to 
listen to the voice of asceticism in so far 
as to confound various departments of vir- 
tuous life and action with '^ the world " 
which we are to put beneath our feet. 
One Christian abandons politics, because 
" they are so corrupting ; " another with- 
draws from business, because " it makes 
the mind so worldly ;" a third will engage 



ASCETICISM IS NOT VICTORY, 2iZ 

in no amusements, because "they are 
dissipating ; " a fourth will not go into 
society, and be present at parties, because 
" they interfere with a devotional frame 
of mind ; " a fifth refuses to enjoy art in 
its varied forms, or to delight in litera- 
ture, or to put culture to use, because 
" self-denial is to be the governing rule 
of life." It must be admitted that all 
these things are corrupted by the world, 
and that Satan has long possessed in 
them the prevailing influence ; but that 
•is no reason why the Christian soldier 
should flee away from them, and, when 
he gets to what he considers a safe dis- 
tance, should turn around and call them 
hard names, and imagine that such a 
procedure is a victory. These are neces- 
sary departments of life. They belong 
to human development and a true civili- 
3 



34 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

zation. They must be appropriated by 
Christianity, and put to needful use by 
the Church. To desert the ground, and 
to leave it to the occupation of the world, 
the flesh, and the devil, is cowardice and 
not courage, is treason and not loyalty. 
Spiritual victory means piety which tri- 
umphantly maintains all human relation- 
ships, and makes natural but pure use of 
all innocent activities and enjoyments in 
every grade of society. 

In this as in other respects Jesus was 
our perfect example. Here he differed 
from John the Baptist, who was intended to 
be a sternly-disciplined prophet for pecu- 
liar service (as occasionally a saint now 
is), but who was not set forth as a model 
for the people to imitate, and who had 
the good sense not to require his hearers 
to adopt his life. On the contrary, John 



ASCETICISM IS NOT VICTORY. 35 

exhorted each to abide contentedly in 
his ordinary occupation, and to purge it 
from immoralities. But Jesus was to be 
our example ; and so he was no ascetic in 
his training or life. He was a man of 
and among the people, — living in their 
homes, partaking of their good cheer, 
attending their marriage-feasts, accepting 
invitations to their dinner-parties, watch- 
ing with interest and pleasure the sports 
of the children in the market-places, and 
casting no frown upon a single needful 
occupation in secular life, or upon a sin- 
gle innocent enjoyment. Asceticism was 
not born of his mind or heart. He 
believed in victories, not in defeats. 

" Make us, by thy transforming grace, 
Dear Saviour, daily more like thee : 
Thy fair example may we trace, 
To teach us what we ought to be.'' 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE VICTORY DESCRIBED. 

IJERHAPS the inspired, victorious 
Christian life is more often denoted 
by the word " spirituality " than by any 
other. One who has risen above the 
world, and gained a triumph over his 
soul's enemies, is spoken of as " a spirit- 
ual Christian," or as " a spiritually 
minded" person. Is this language un- 
derstood ? We fear that it is not. 

" Spirituality " is a word used with much 
vagueness of meaning, and not seldom 
with an included error. Yet one's con- 
ception should be clear on such a point : 
growth in grace demands it, as well as 
the value of advice to others. Plainly 
36 



THF VICTORY DESCRIBED, 37 

the word indicates an antagonism to 
carnality and worldliness. Such is its 
use in the New Testament, where it is 
placed in opposition to a life devoted to 
the world, the flesh, and the devil. It 
refers properly to a state of mind, a dis- 
position of soul, a generic and control- 
ling motive, rather than to single acts, or 
to mere outward conduct. Yet the mis- 
take is constantly made, of supposing 
that spirituality pertains to one class of 
places and pursuits, and worldliness to 
another. It is not a question of time, 
place, and occupation, however, but of 
supreme purpose and devotion. A min- 
ister may be worldly at the sacred altar ; 
and a merchant may be spiritual in the 
marts of commerce. One lady may be 
carnally-minded at a prayer-meeting, 
while another is spiritually-minded at 
Saratoga or Newport. 



38 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

We may be aided in reaching a defi- 
nite idea of spirituality, by a reference 
to the composition of the word ; and 
that, whichever of the two derivations 
we may prefer. If the reference be to 
the human spirit, then we are to con- 
ceive of an inward religion, a piety 
which consists not in outward deeds 
merely, whether these be drudgeries, 
rites, charities, or penances, but in the 
affections and purposes of the soul. It 
is thus a religion of the spirit and not 
of the body. In our Saviour's time 
Judaism had become formalism, and 
worship meant a round of ceremonies. 
Therefore he said to the woman of Sa- 
maria, " The true worshippers shall wor- 
ship the Father in spirit and in truth : for 
the Father seeketh such to worship him. 
God is a Spirit : and they that worship 



THE VICTORY DESCRIBED, 39 

him must worship in spirit and in truth." 
Heart-homage is the only real homage. 
Bent knees are not necessarily devotion. 
What is the attitude of the spirit toward 
God ? that is the only pertinent question 
The error of Judaism, which counted the 
Pharisees peculiarly religious because 
they spent much time in fasting, repeat- 
ing prayers, and attending to other cere- 
monies, is very commonly entertained in 
the Romish Church to-day, where those 
are called " the religious " who devote 
themselves to certain ecclesiastical and 
devotional duties, as monks, nuns, and 
members of various orders. But spirit- 
uality is a state of mind which is en- 
joined upon all, which is possible to 
all, which denotes the victory of every 
true soldier ot the cross, and which one 
carries with him everywhere, and takes 



40 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. ^ 

into all his pursuits and pleasures. It is 
what it claims to be, — a spirit of love to 
God, of consecration to Christ, of devo- 
tion to the highest interests of the soul. 
This spirit may lead to manifold duties 
of worship, of business, of study, of rec- 
reation, as the necessities of the day and 
hour may require. The outward acts 
will differ widely : they will be grave and 
gay, important and trivial, directed God- 
ward and man-ward, referring to time 
and eternity, to body and soul ; but they 
will nevertheless flow from one inward 
fountain. Thus spirituality will be seen 
to consist not in the things done, but in 
the spirit with which they are done. 
Some men promote a revival with less 
spirituality than that vv^ith which others 
pursue secular business, or engage in in- 
nocent pleasures. 



THE VICTORY DESCRIBED. 41 

The same truth comes to light if we 
connect the word with the Holy Spirit, 
which the usage of Paul in the eighth 
chapter of Romans would justify. Thus 
we read, " To be carnally-minded is 
death ; but to be spiritually-minded is 
life and peace," which more literally 
translated is, " The minding of the 
flesh is death ; but the minding of the 
Spirit is life and peace." This accords 
with the previous verse : " They that are 
after the flesh do mind the things of the 
flesh ; but they that are after the Spirit, 
the things of the Spirit." Through all 
the connected passage the apostle is 
'"speaking of the sanctifying influence of 
the Holy Spirit. His idea of spirituality 
is, that the soul should be enlightened, 
guided, and purified by the Holy Spirit. 
Hence he writes to the Galatians, " Walk 



42 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the 
lusts of the flesh/' — ye shall gain a per- 
petual victory over temptation. This af- 
firms no limitation of outward service. 
One place maybe as holy as another; 
and all action done under the leading of 
the Spirit is equally accepted of God. 
There is no necessary part of life which 
may not be inspired by the divine Spirit, 
whether it be work or play, social con- 
verse or public worship. We read that 
Jesus, after his baptism and temptation 
in the wilderness, was " filled with the 
Spirit ; " and yet the first place at which 
we find him is the wedding in Cana ; and 
he was as spiritual there as he was sub- 
sequently at the grave of Lazarus. No 
man has a right to affirm that Paul was 
less spiritual when making tents than 
when preaching the gospel. Sometimes 



THE VICTORY DESCRIE ED. 43 

it requires more grace to work with one's 
hands at the bidding of Providence, than 
it does to speak in public in behalf of a 
religious life, or in defence of Christian 
doctrine. Even in the Old Testament 
we are told that the skilful artist Beza- 
leel was " filled with the Spirit of God, 
in understanding and in knowledge and 
in all manner of workmanship, and to 
devise curious works, to work in gold 
and in silver and in brass and in the 
cutting of stones, to set them, and in the 
carving of wood, to make any manner 
of cunning work." Can any one doubt 
that in faithfully following this Spirit- 
guidance in the construction of the 
tabernacle, Bezaleel was as religiously 
occupied as were the priests and Levites 
in waiting at the altar, or as was Moses 
himself in delivering the divine law to 
the people ? 



44 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

As God has planned out our lives in 
the circumstances in which we act, with 
the existing demands for labor, social 
intercourse, and recreation, as well as 
for worship and religious instruction, his 
Spirit, if duly sought, will be with us 
equally in the whole round of life's activi- 
ties. As we need him in all, he will fail us 
in none. We may take the blessed Com- 
forter with us everywhere, and may 
with a pure conscience enjoy his sancti- 
fying influences in all that we do. The 
completely developed life of the civil- 
ized world is yet to be inspired by him, 
that the victory of grace may be uni- 
versal. 

This common-sense and Scriptural view 
will save us from the self-deception of 
supposing that we are spiritual because 
we talk and busy ourselves about tech- 



THE VICTORY DESCRIBED. 45 

nically religious matters, and also from 
the cant and censoriousness of incul- 
cating, even with bitterness, a spirituality 
which we misconceive. To be true to 
God always, and to find him everywhere ; 
to live ever by faith in Christ Jesus ; to 
be simple, innocent, natural, and loving 
in all relationships ; to be filled with the 
Holy Ghost ; to rise easily and sponta- 
neously from fact to truth, from nature 
to God, from the human to the divine ; 
to accept with the same spirit of conse- 
cration and obedience whatever seems to 
lie in the order of Providence for us to 
do, whether it be private or public, little 
or great, secular or ecclesiastical, work 
or play, — is what we mean by spiritu- 
ality. This is the- true victory, in which 
the saint overcomes the world, the flesh, 
and the Devil. 



46 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

" Finish, then, thy new creation : 
Pure, unspotted may we be : 
Let us see our whole salvation 
Perfectly secured by Thee." 



CHAPTER V. 

REALIZING FOR WHOM WE FIGHT. 

T^HE battle is the Lord's, not only as 
to its decision, but as to its object. 
He is our King. We fight not for our- 
selves simply, but as his loyal subjects. 
There is a rebellion against his author- 
ity : we ourselves once were rebels. 
Penitently returning to our allegiance, 
and mercifully pardoned, we grasp our 
weapons to maintain the rights of God 
in his own universe. The conflict be- 
gins within, — in ridding ourselves of the 
delusions of sin, in recovering from in- 
sensibility to divine things, in acquiring 
faith in the unseen. Our king is in- 
visible; and hence a real difficulty in 

47 



48 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

life, an inability to realize the presence 
and love of God, and to respond with 
answering affection, is not unusual. It 
is a frequent defect of religious life, that 
it is ethical more than personal in its 
aims, legal rather than loving in its 
spirit. It has regard to an abstract idea 
of right rather than to God ; and it is a 
burden on the conscience rather than a 
joy of the soul. It consequently lacks 
warmth and tenderness, liberty and in- 
spiration. 

To realize God, — can that be diffi- 
cult? Yes, in its true, full sense. In 
childhood it may have puzzled us some- 
what, to read, in the eleventh of He- 
brews, what seemed a mere truism, 
"He that cometh to God must believe 
that he is, and that he is a rewarder of 
them that diligently seek him.'' " Why, 



FOR WHOM WE FIGHT. 49 

everybody believes that/' we said. We 
know better now. Even in the intellec- 
tual sense, multitudes persuade them- 
selves that God is not separable from his 
universe, and has no such providential 
agency, or coming tribunal, as will in- 
sure reward to his worshippers and ser- 
vants. "Every man his own God," 
says the pantheist; while the less hardy 
philosophizer affirms that God has left 
every man to take care of himself as 
best he can in the established system of 
things. Worldliness, too, brings a man 
to the same unbelief by its practical 
exclusion of God from one's thoughts 
and plans. 

The moral atmosphere of the world 

does not favor impressions of God on 

the soul j and it requires something more 

than to read "Paley's Evidences," or 

4 



50 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

other volume of proof of the Divine exist- 
ence, to bring home to us in full force the 
idea that God is. Even a genuine spirit- 
ual conversion only initiates this neces- 
sary experience, — only plants the seed 
of God, as it were, in the soul. That seed 
must be cultivated by all the thoughts and 
acts which present God to the mind in 
his living, loving personality. Habitual 
prayer — prayer which not only often 
seeks the closet, but goes with us in men- 
tal ejaculations all the daylong — has 
great efficacy in this respect, especially 
when joined with a conscious putting- 
forth of faith to take hold of the divine 
promises as actual sources of aid. Praise 
similarly operates when ^ much used. 
Blessed is the mind which is full of 
precious hymns, and the tongue which 
sings them every hour ! Through these 



FOR WHOM WE FIGHT, 51 

gateways God comes into the soul as a 
welcome presence of power and love. 

It is a law of mind, that objects cease 
to impress in proportion to the with- 
drawal of attention. A man may be so 
excited in a battle, as not to know that 
he has received a wound ; and a man 
may be so excited in the pursuit of 
earthly pleasure or gain, as not to realize 
that there is a God. One writes at his 
desk, absorbed in thought. The clock 
on the wall above his head strikes each 
hour with noisy clang : yet he hears no 
sound. Why ? Because just then the 
clock has no relation to his will. But 
let him purpose to take the train at half- 
past four j and, with the knowledge on 
his part that it will require thirty min- 
utes to reach the station, let that clock 
strike four ; and see how instantly he 



52 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

drops pen, leaps up, seizes hat and over- 
coat, and rushes from the office ! The 
morning rising-bell is rung in the house 
at the bedroom door. The man who 
purposes to heed it, anxious to begin the 
day's work, hears the first stroke, and 
leaps from his couch. The drowsy 
sleeper who has no purpose to obey its 
summons, and who, in fact, has disre- 
garded it for days or weeks, and has 
found its sound becoming fainter each 
morning, at last ceases to hear it at all. 
So dies God's voice upon the ear that 
has no purpose to obey him : so fades 
God himself out of a mind that has no 
place for him in its thoughts. He be- 
comes only an article in the creed, an 
intellectual conclusion, a theological 
opinion, a customary name. His per- 
sonality ceases; his providence is dis- 



FOR WHOM WE FIGHT, 53 

credited ; prayer is abandoned, or sinks 
into a mere form ; and religion is reduced 
to an abstract idea of right, and a social 
law of morality. 

Reverse the process, and you reverse 
the effect. Bring God once more to the 
throne, by placing him in the chief pur- 
pose of a man, and at once he begins to 
take on reality. Cultivate the thought 
of him by worship, and he seems yet 
more real. Act with direct aim to please 
him, and every such act makes him 
stand forth more distinctly. Pray to 
him much, take him into all your plans, 
ask his aid in the whole of life, and 
gradually he becomes a perpetual pres- 
ence, and the most real of all beings. 

Spiritual victory must commence with 
this clear realization of the fact that we 
belong to a glorious kingdom, on the 



54 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

throne of which God sits j and that it is 
for him, and not merely for ourselves, 
that we fight the battle within and with- 
out. The inspiring thought is, that we 
live to God. " I have set the Lord al- 
ways before me," said the Psalmist. 

" Oh ! not in circling depth or height, 

But in the conscious breast, 
Present to faith, though veiled from sight, — 

There doth his spirit rest. 
Oh ! come, thou Presence infinite, 

And make thy creature blest" 



CHAPTER VL 

THE CAPTAIN OF OUR SALVATION. 

T3 UT can we approach no nearer to 
"*~^^ God than by the vague imagination 
of an infinite Spirit, whom, by all our 
searching, we can never find out ? Are 
we not in danger of being lost in im- 
mensity, as if we were afloat on a shore- 
less ocean ? Can we not make him 
seem more real to our humanity, while 
engaged in this earthly conflict, fighting 
under his eye ? We have dwelt upon 
the influence of practical irreligion, or 
neglect of God, in preventing the mind 
from realizing the Divine personality, 
presence, and agency. When the will 
ceases consciously to adjust itself to 

55 



56 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

God's law and government, and to 
Christ's salvation, and no communion 
is kept up with the unseen through 
prayer, God becomes a dim, far-off 
being, a mere idea or name, bringing to 
the soul no warmth of love, or inspira- 
tion of thought and act. But when the 
heart bows to his will, and accepts of 
his redemption, he seemingly draws near, 
and becomes real j and that soul, through 
continued faith, worship, and service, 
finds him to be an ever-present, loving 
Father. 

Let us bring to the front another 
Bible thought, which may help one to 
come to the realization of God as a 
living person, full of sympathy and love, 
as well as of wisdom and power. It is 
a curious and instructive fact, that the 
same Book which seveiely condemns 



CAPTAIN OF OUR SALVATION, 57 

idolatry, and all approaches to idolatr}'-, 
emphasizing that sin as especially fatal 
to true religion, and as specifically for- 
bidding it in the precepts of the New 
Testament as it was prohibited by the 
Decalogue in the Old Testament, yet 
teaches us that we hold such relations 
to Christ as must lead us into idolatry 
unless he be more than man. It is the 
fundamental fact of Christianity, that 
we are to accept of Christ as our Lord 
and Master, because in his person God 
became incarnate. The marvellous truth 
is declared, that he was " Son of God," 
as well as " Son of man ; " that he was 
" the Logos," " the Word " (the uttered 
communication or the revealer of God), 
who " in the beginning " " was with 
God, and was God," and who "was 
made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of 



58 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

grace and truth/^ Hence we hear him 
say of himself, "I and the Father are 
one;" "He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father ; " " Believe me, that I 
am in the Father, and the Father in 
me." And so Paul testifies, that "in 
him dwelleth all the fulness of the God- 
head bodily: and ye are complete in 
him, who is the Head of all principality 
and power," and that in him God was 
"manifest in the flesh." 

When God had thoroughly purged the 
Jewish mind of all tendency to idolatry, 
he saw that the way was prepared to re- 
veal his loving personality with an in- 
crease of sympathetic power. For it is to 
be noticed that there is a lack of warmth 
in the bare idea of one, invisible, absolute 
God. His infinity and mystery make 
him so unlike us, and remove him so far 



CAPTAIN OF OUR SALVAIION. 59 

I 
from us, that he recedes above the blue 

ether, or is merged in his general laws. 
Thus we complain of a certain philo- 
sophic chill about Unitarianism, which, 
in appealing to the reason, fails to touch 
the heart, and has always shown a lack 
of practical power. And so Moham- 
medanism, which based itself on the 
short creed of one unseen God, and 
opposed idolatry to the death, has lost 
any living soul it may have had, and has 
become a dead body of ceremonialism, 
with a freezing creed of fatalism. 

But evangelical Christianity has its 
life and power in its warm Pauline con- 
ception that " God was in Christ, recon- 
ciling the world unto himself ; " and in 
the doctrine of Jesus himself, " I am the 
Way, the Truth, and the Life : no man 
cometh unto the Father, but by me." 



6o SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

" Neither knoweth any man the Father, 
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the 
Son will reveal him." Therefore we 
may come to our Saviour as to our con- 
descending and redeeming God, without 
fear of idolatry, or of provoking the 
Divine anger by giving to another the 
honor due only unto God. Kneeling 
penitently and trustfully at his feet, and 
putting our fingers with Thomas into the 
print of the nails, with him we may each 
exclaim, " My Lord and my God ! " 

And now, surely, God is brought near, 
and is made very real. We cannot read 
the gracious words of Jesus ; we cannot 
in imagination witness his recorded 
deeds of love ; we cannot take to heart 
the meaning of the prophetic words con- 
cerning the name given him, " They 
shall call his name Emmanuel, which, 



CAPTAIN OF OUR SALIVATION, 6 1 

being interpreted, is, God with us," — 
without feeling that God is no far-off 
being, no mere architect or world- 
builder, no doubtful mystery back of 
Nature's laws, no mere legislator even ; 
but is the embodiment of purity, tender- 
ness, sympathy, and love. Thus the 
name God makes place for the person 
God, as " manifest in the flesh ; " and 
the words of John come to us as unfold- 
ing a central truth : " No man hath seen 
God at any time : the only-begotten Son, 
who is in the bosom of the Father, he 
hath declared him." If any one, then, 
finds it difficult, amid the conflicts of 
life, to realize God, and to understand 
that he fights ander a living Captain, let 
him think of Jesus, the God-man, the 
point of union of the divine and human, 
the Revealer of the Father, " the bright- 



62 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

ness of his glory, and the express image 
of his person." Let him believe that 
through him came out before men and 
angels God's heart of love ; and that 
whatever he was on earth, in unsullied 
purity and yet in compassionate regard 
for sinners, such God in heaven is in in- 
finite degree. Why should God seem 
unreal to a world into which he came as 
a quickening personality, as the Spirit- 
begotten and virgin-born Jesus, the 
Christ, the past Sacrifice, the present 
Mediator, the future Judge? No: let 
us joyfully sing, — 

** Soldiers of Christ, arise, 

And gird your armor on, 
Strong in the strength which God supplies 

Through his eternal Son, — 
Strong in the Lord of hosts, 

And in his mighty power. 
Who in the strength of Jesus trusts 

Is more than conqiieror." 



CHAPTER VII, 

THE GREAT ADVERSARY. 

THE Christian, as we have seen, 
fights for God, and under the 
leadership of Christ as the " Captain of 
salvation. '' It is also to be considered 
that he fights against an opposing king- 
dom, and resists an adversary of fell 
intent and of manifold resources. Peter 
warns us that our " adversary the devil, 
as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking 
whom he may devour." Paul bids us 
"put on the whole armor of God, that 
we may be able to stand against the 
wiles of the devil ; " to " resist the devil ; " 
and to labor for sinners, " that they may 
recover themselves out of the snare of 

63 



64 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

the devil, who are taken captive by him." 
It would thus seem that we have a pow- 
erful personal enemy, whom we are to 
overcome. 

Yet an intelligent layman of the " Lib- 
eral " ranks inquired of one lately, 
whether the orthodox still believe in a 
personal Devil. He had been shocked by 
the remark of a friend, after the Chicago 
fire, who observed that nothing had been 
to him such a confirmation of his belief 
In the devil as that event ; implying that 
the devil had wrought the malign de- 
struction. Perhaps his friend was think- 
ing of the case of Job, whose calamities 
are represented to have been brought 
upon him by Satan, under Divine per- 
mission, as tests of character, to show 
that his piety was not selfish, — an obe- 
dience rendered for benefits received, — 



THE GREA T ^. D VERS A R Y, 65 

but was disinterested, and could abide 
the loss of outward good. If the confla- 
gration had come on that city by a simi- 
lar agency, and for a similar reason, we 
do not know that any man's moral sense 
need to have been shocked ; but, as such 
an inspired explanation has not been 
vouchsafed, it was certainly a rash inter- 
pretation, of which complaint was made, 
and quite unnecessary to account for the 
facts. That which God permits to take 
place by natural law, or by human agen- 
cy, when he could easily have prevented 
its occurrence, is properly considered to 
have had a providential ordering ; and 
so we may trace the hand of Providence 
in the Chicago and the Boston fires, and 
may easily ascertain the lesson 5 which 
God would have us learn, without a 
recourse to Satanic agency. 
5 



66 SPLUTUAL VICTORY. 

But there is nothing strange or unrea- 
sonable in the orthodox doctrine of a 
personal devil. There may have been 
superstition, in former ages, in the use 
to which the doctrine was often put. The 
supposed agency of the Devil was con- 
nected with all evil acts and with all 
untoward events, in a way to cause need- 
less alarm, and to minister to the demand 
for priestly intervention. But such a 
perversion of the truth in no wise dis- 
proves it. The fact of the existence of 
a leading apostate spirit, the head of 
the rebellion against God, and the inspi- 
ration of anti-Christian effort, lacks 
neither Scriptural proof nor inherent 
reasonableness. 

The affirmations of Scripture are 
numerous, clear and uniform. They 
occur in the Old and in the New Te3ta- 



THE GREAT ADVERSARY. 67 

ments. Genesis opens with the account 
of the tempter in the garden, securing 
the fall of our first parents ; and the 
Apocalypse closes with the prediction of 
his final overthrow and destruction in 
company with all those who have persist- 
ently adhered to his revolt. The inter- 
vening books consistently speak of his 
character, of his direct antagonism to 
Christ, and of his schemes and influence 
during the world's history, and warn us 
against his snares. That the letter of the • 
Bible teaches this, no one pretends to 
deny ; but some argue that these numer- 
ous, varied, and persistent declarations 
must be interpreted figuratively, as a per- 
sonification of man's evil tendencies and 
of the world's spiritual dangers. The ob- 
jections to admitting such an interpreta- 
tion are, that it is unnatural, that it is 



68 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

called for by no real exigency, that it is 
inconsistent with the facts and language 
in many specific passages, and that it 
^ admits a loose principle of explanation 
by which almost any plain statement of 
Scripture might be set aside. It is 
hardly too much to affirm that the same 
reasoning would resolve the Saviour into 
a myth, or else into a mere figure of 
speech representing man's good tenden- 
cies and God's spiritual grace. The 
same spiritualizing pen which goes 
through the Bible effacing the person of 
Satan could as easily efface the person of 
Christ j for in Scripture the two are set 
over personally against each other, from 
the fall in Paradise to the scenes of the 
final judgment. 

And on what a slender pretext the 
denial of this Scriptural fact is based ! 



THE GREA T AD VERS A R K 69 

In what respect is the idea unreasonable ? 
What absurdity is there in believing 
that there are other and higher orders of 
being than men? Did the Creator ex- 
haust his power in producing man ? As 
there are innumerable worlds besides 
this earth, so there may be numberless 
rational beings besides the inhabitants 
of earth. Thus the existence of angels 
is perfectly credible. But these may 
differ in moral character : some may be 
holy, and others apostate. Men have 
fallen : why not angels ? And if angels 
came into being, not in families of hered- 
itary descent, but by the simultaneous 
creation of individual spirits, then it is 
quite conceivable that part of them may 
have remained holy, when others of the 
number apostatized; and also that the 
fall of adult beings may ha\e had pecu- 



70 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

liarly malignant features and results, and 
especially in the case of leading minds. 
We can see, then, no greater absurdity 
in the idea of multitudes of evil spirits, 
than in the existence before our eyes of 
millions upon millions of evil men. 

But, if this be true, there is no unrea- 
sonableness in the supposition that good 
and evil spirits are concerned in the 
events of earthly history. God's uni- 
verse is a unit: especially must his 
moral universe be one. It is quite con- 
ceivable that the creation and redemp- 
tion of the human race have such distinct 
relations to angelic history as greatly to 
interest both good and evil spirits in 
the result. We know that men influence 
each other powerfully towards holiness 
and towards sin, and that this influence 
is often unconsciously received. Why, 



THE GREA T AD VERS A R Y, 7 1 

then, in our ignorance of spirit-methods 
and relations, should we reject the idea 
that we are acted upon by both classes of 
spirits, that we receive help from good 
angels and harm from apostate angels, as 
the Bible clearly asserts that we do ? 

Once more : if there be a vast number 
of evil spirits, acting in antagonism to 
the gospel, as a "power of darkness," 
and a " kingdom " of evil, what is there 
so absurd in the idea that they should 
have as a head and leader some fallen 
archangel ? Why should Paul's declara- 
tion be incredible, that there is a " prince 
of the power of the air, the spirit that 
now worketh in the children of disobe- 
dience " ? Such a belief is natural as 
well as scriptural. Masses of mind 
usually act under social influences ; and 
one superior mind guides the rest. The 



72 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

apostacy itself, as an extended rebellion, 
is best explained on such a supposition. 
Indeed, we can hardly conceive of its 
occurrence otherwise than as the influ- 
ence of a commanding mind, high in sta- 
tion, over those accustomed to confide 
in him, inducing them to follow him in 
revolt as before in obedience. And so 
one can best account for the succes- 
sive developments of sin in this world, 
especially in its organic and persistent 
forms, by the agency of a great organiz- 
ing leader, who heads the opposition to 
Christ. We do not see that, in itself, it 
is any more absurd to believe in the 
devil as the leader of fallen spirits than 
in Jefferson Davis as the President of 
the rebellious Confederacy, or in Napo- 
leon Bonaparte as the imperial leader of 
the French armies in the wars of Europe. 



THE GREAT ADVERSARY, 73 

A belief in this doctrine is important 
(Paul being witness) as warning the 
Christian against actual danger, and as 
giving positiveness to the antagonism 
between good and evil. Prof. Maurice, 
with his well-known ^^ Liberal " tenden- 
cies, clearly saw this practical fact in 
religion, and refused to explain away the 
language of the Bible in this respect. 
And if there be a personal devil, as 
held by the orthodox, and as described 
by the letter of Scripture, what a tri- 
umph it must be for him, to persuade 
men that no such being exists ! 

" In the way a thousand snares 
Lie, to take us unawares : 
Satan, with malicious art, 
Watches each unguarded part." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A GOSPEL OF VICTORY. 

BLESSED be God ! — that in Christi- 
anity we have a gospel, and not a 
philosophy; a supernatural grace, and 
not the mere operation of natural law. 
Christ is our personal Redeemer, and 
not simply the teacher of improved eth- 
ics. The Holy Ghost is the healing 
influence to restore sinful souls to health ; 
and they are not left to any legal self- 
struggles. Thus faith, not works, is the 
condition of salvation in all its parts, — in 
the process of sanctification as well as 
of justification. There is, indeed, a 
divine philosophy in Christianity : other- 
wise it wouJd not be the product of the 
74 



A GOSPEL OF VICTORY. 75 

divine reason, nor be the chosen divine 
method ; but we accept and use it not 
as a discovered philosophy (for as such 
we know but little of it), but as a revela- 
tion to faith of a gracious supernatural 
power. 

Do not many preachers of the gospel 
lose sight of this truth, and, after be- 
ginning in the Spirit, end, like the Gala- 
tians, in the flesh? From childhood 
up, we have listened to very much so- 
called evangelical preaching which 
dropped out the distinctive gospel char- 
acteristic in dealing with the question 
of victory over sin. Christ was recog- 
nized chiefly as a justifying Saviour ; and 
faith had its office almost exclusively in 
accepting pardon on the ground of his 
death and intercession. But, when it 
came to the fight against sin, we were 



76 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

thrown back upon our resolutions, pur- 
poses, efforts of will to preserve and to 
overcome past evil habits, attempts grad- 
ually and slowly to form new habits 
according to the necessary laws of mind. 
There was, to be sure, a word occasion- 
ally uttered, that this must not be 
undertaken in our own strength, and 
that God must be asked to aid us ; but 
this truth was left in a general, vague, 
and but slightly influential form ; and all 
the earnest specific directions and illus- 
trations remanded us to a simple per- 
tinacious endeavor on our own part to 
overcome evil habits. Indeed, we have 
listened to a multitude of sermons on 
this subject — supposed by ministers and 
hearers to be Christian, because preached 
from a pulpit, and preceded by a text — 
which were but an ethical philosophy, 



A GOSPEL OF VIC TORY. 77 

pointing out the method of nature in a 
struggle to get right, and which might 
have been pronounced by some of the 
old Grecian or Roman moralists. They 
reminded us, also, of the purely Judaistic 
and legal method of seeking sanctifica- 
tion, against which Paul so earnestly 
contended, and the utter inefficacy of 
which (as resulting in steady defeat) he 
set forth so emphatically in the seventh 
chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. 
The modern effect of such preaching is 
as discouraging as the ancient. It 
brings the earnest striver under perpet- 
ual condemnation, and results in one of 
two opposite effects : either the Christian 
gropes forward, and struggles on, fettered 
by a legal bondage, and saddened by 
the constant failure of his ineffectual 
resolutions; or else, discouraged, he 



78 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

ceases, to a large extent, to struggle 
earnestly at all, and allows himself in 
sundry evil habits which dishonor re- 
ligion, on the ground that nobody 
expects to gain a victory over them, 
they are so inveterate. This reminds 
us of a sermon preached a few years 
since, in which the clergyman cautioned 
his hearers against expecting to make 
rapid progress in sanctification, telling 
them that sins were to be slowly over- 
come, one after another, and reminding 
them that the fruits which ripen the 
most slowly last the longest. A hearer 
thereupon quoted, as a new moral prov- 
erb, " Soon ripe, soon rotten." Did 
ever mortal so confound things material 
and spiritual, or offer to religious slug- 
gards such a convenient defence ? 

Now, the New-Testament conception 



A GOSPEL OF VICTORY, 79 

of sanctification is radically different. 
It looks at every thing in the reverse 
order, — first God and then man. The 
effect is primarily a grace and not a 
work. It is the product of supernatural 
power, from its initiation at the moment 
of regeneration, till its completion in the 
final confirmation of the saint in spotless 
purity forever. Further still, it is a per- 
sonal work of the Holy Spirit in each 
soul, under the promise and mediatorial 
direction of Christ, and is carried for- 
ward in the man by a perpetual Divine 
presence and action. From this it 
follows, that, though involving voluntary 
action, it depends far less upon a con- 
scious will-work, a perpetually renewed 
conflict between temptation and our 
resolutions, than it does upon a habitual 
^ct of faith in Christ, as an ever-present, 



8o SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

sanctifying Saviour, and in the Holy 
Spirit as an abiding power of victory in 
the soul. By such implicit faith, hourly 
and momently supplies of spiritual 
strength are received, and the victory 
comes as the reward of faith, — as God's 
response to the soul's sure expectation 
of triumph, based on his full and free 
promises. This inward Divine working 
sometimes manifests itself so suddenly 
and powerfully, in answer to the faith of 
a soul previously struggling in a legal 
bondage of resolutions, that it seems to 
be a special " baptism of the Holy Ghost," 
and is so called. Under its influence 
old habits of sin — such as pride, intem- 
perance, anger, tobacco -bondage, and 
covetousness, which had resisted years 
of will-work, and of an attempt by a 
merely natural process, supplemented by 



A GOSPEL OF VIC TORI. 8i 

vague prayer, to overthrow them, and 
gradually to form other habits — give 
way and dissolve like the snow and ice 
before the south wind; and the man 
walks forth in freedom, astonished at 
the ease with which the newly intensified 
love of Christ enables him to rise above 
the power of temptation. 

This is the reason that Paul, in the 
eighth of Romans, describes a state of 
victory, in contrast with the state of de- 
feat set forth in the seventh chapter; 
explaining all in these words (verse 2) : 
" For the law of the Spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the 
law of sin and death ; " or free from the 
law which he had just before mentioned 
(vii. 21, &c.) as "the law of sin in his 
members," " a law, that, when I would do 
good, evil is present with me," and 
6 



82 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

which made him exclaim, " Oh wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death?" The 
victory was not merely by harder and 
more persistent struggling, but by re- 
ceiving, through faith in Christ as a 
sanctifying as well as a justifying Sav- 
iour, the gift of the Spirit. Hence even 
our efforts are to be put forth in the 
distinct consciousness of this fact ; and 
we are to " work out our own salvation 
with fear and trembling," in full confi- 
dence of the result ; because " it is God 
that worketh in us, to will and to do of 
his good pleasure," and not because oui" 
effort is a philosophical foundation of 
new and better habits. In this, as in 
all other respects, "we walk by faith," 
" looking unto Jesus," " abiding in him," 
and remembering that " of God are we 



A GOSPEL OF VICTORY, ^2, 

in Christ Jesus, who of God is mad^ 
unto us wisdom and righteousness and 
sanctification and redemption," and that 
" this is the victory that overcometh the 
world, even our faith.'* Paul knew well 
what advice to give to his Ephesian con- 
verts, when, starting from the right end 
of things, he said, " Above all, taking 
the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be 
able to quench all the fiery darts of the 
wicked." Bless God ! — we again say — 
that in Christianity we have a super- 
natural power, and not a mere divine 
law ; a gospel grace, and not an ethical 
philosophy. 

*' I cannot rest till in thy blood 
I full redemption have ; 
But thou, through whom I c ;me to God, 
Canst to the utmost save.'' 



CHAPTER IX. 



VICTORY BY FAITH. 



T TOW does faith work spiritual vic- 
"^ tory ? A moral philosopher, look- 
ing simply at natural laws, and at a 
human will striving to govern itself by 
conscience, would easily be stumbled at 
the idea that sin is to be subdued by 
faith. Faith in whom, or in what ? Faith 
of what kind } Faith operating by what 
method? Faith securing what result, 
— one partial, or complete.^ one grad- 
ual, or sudden ? He reasons that there 
can be but one way of uprooting habits 
of sin j to wit, that pointed out by natu- 
ral law, as the result of continuous 
human striving in the slow and gradual 
84 



VICTORY BY FAITH, 85 

attempt to manufacture a contraiy 
habit. A man must struggle hard, 
and then harder : he must will to do 
right, and when he fails must will again 
more strongly : he must go at his sins 
with a desperate determination, taking 
them by the throat with deadly intent : 
thus he must fight on, and fight through, 
not discouraged because he makes little 
or no perceptible progress, but taking 
this for his life-battle. If the philosopher 
be also a Christian, he will at times add 
a word about faith, because the New 
Testament so often speaks of faith ; but 
he will seldom mean more by it than a 
general conviction that God will help us 
in the battle, so that we shall be saved 
in the end. 

Now, while there is a certain truth in 
this representation, viewed simply on the 



86 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

side of nature and of legal influences, we 
cannot but think that equally in idea, in 
method, and in efficacy, it comes far short 
of the gospel plan of salvation from sin, 
which operates chiefly by faith. In so 
saying, we do not mean that a single act 
of faith will break up all sinful habits, 
however ancient and inveterate, and will 
replace them with pure tendencies of 
equal strength. No man fights the battle 
of life in a moment, even by the aid of 
faith. Faith is, indeed, a "shield," 
" wherewith," as Paul declares, we " may 
be able to quench all the fiery darts of 
the wicked [one] ; " but it does not sub- 
stitute a single victory for a campaign. 
But we mean that faith is to be the abid- 
ing act, the habitual state of mind, which 
shall underlie all we think and do, lift- 
ing it from a h7iman to place it on a 



VICTORY BY FAITH, 87 

divine foundation. It starts in complete 
self-despair, — in a conviction of the utter 
impotency of our resolutions to resist 
temptation, and to uproot evil habit ; 
and it rests solely on the promised in- 
dwelling of the Holy Spirit given by 
Christ in answer to believing application. 
Taught by the words of Jesus, " Without 
me ye can do nothing," with Paul it 
says, at every breath, " Not that we are 
sufficient of ourselves to think any thing 
as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of 
God." Its conscious act, therefore, is 
not so much a resolution against sin 
(which is rather implied) as a perpetual 
trusting in Christ for grace to keep it 
from sin moment by moment. Its 
prompting is, to lean, to confide, to 
pray, to expect ; not in separate, formal 
exercises (though these occur), but rathei 



88 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

in abiding union of soul to Christ, and 
in constant fellowship with him. 

For notice : faith is properly con- 
fidence in a person. We believe in a 
truth j but we have faith in a person. 
Therein is the grand peculiarity of the 
gospel : it does infinitely more than to 
furnish a new code of moral laws : it 
reveals a personal Saviour, to whom we 
go in faith for all that we need. This 
is the first, this is the ever-repeated step 
in spiritual life, to the very end. Thus 
John, who writes, " This is the victory 
which overcometh the world, even our 
faith," explains the idea, when he says, 
" Ye are of God, little children, and have 
overcome them : because greater is he 
that is in you, than he that is in the 
world." Faith receives Christ instead 
of Satan into the soul. So also Paul 



VICTORY BY FAITH. 89 

declared, " I can do all things through 
Christ which strengtheneth me." Hence 
the victory of faith comes from the con- 
fidence that, as V e have in Jesus a full 
and complete Saviour, who is at all times 
with us, so he will at each moment per- 
fectly supply the spiritual need of the 
soul which leans wholly upon him. Such 
a soul, ceasing from its legal struggles 
(or mere efforts of will under the prompt- 
ings of conscience), simply makes conse- 
cration of itself to Christ, puts itself at 
Christ's disposal, invites him to possess 
and v/ork and energize all its faculties, 
hour by hour, and moment by moment, 
by the power of the Holy Spirit, and ex- 
pects that he will do it. That expecta- 
tion he fulfils, so that the saint is able 
to say, " I am crucified with Christ : 
nevertheless "^ live ; yet not I, but Christ 



go SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

liveth in me : and the life which I now 
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the 
Son of God, who loved me, and gave 
himself for me." 

Into this conscious rest in Christ some 
enter almost immediately, if they under- 
stand their privilege, and are taught that 
this is the divine method of sanctification. 
In this way a supernatural grace lifts one 
far above the weakness of a mere natu- 
ral effort, and gives the soul an imme- 
diate victory, which is as continuous as 
is the simple faith in a present Christ, 
and in an inwardly abiding Holy Spirit. 
Moreover, the ease and certainty of this 
victory of faith are owing, in part, to a 
cause which we can understand. In one 
sense it actually supersedes the conflict 
which comes from the mere antagonism 
of conscience and sin, by bringing the 



VICTOR Y BY FAITH. 9 1 

man under the inspiring, exalting, en- 
trancing, and absorbing power of a per- 
sonal love of Christ, before which temp- 
tation shrivels as flax in the flame. 
There is a divine philosophy here : there 
stands revealed in it a law of mind, as 
plain and sure as the one that repeated 
efforts at last work a habit, which is 
more commonly observed and referred 
to in the legal method of sanctification. 
Dr. Chalmers develops it in his famous 
sermon on " The Expulsive Power of a 
New Affection." The simple question 
is, Can the Holy Spirit so reveal Jesus, 
and so keep him before the mind, that 
sinful habit shall lose its power and its 
very opportunity ? No law of mind for- 
bids ; and the Bible authorizes the ex- 
pectation. 

We once read of a reformed drunk- 



92 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

ard weeping at the open grave of a good 
man, and declaring that in that grave all 
his hopes were to be buried, since noth- 
ing had kept him from going back to his 
cups, but the constant watchfulness and 
loving persuasion and all-powerful per- 
sonal influence of him who was now 
dead. He had lived a reformed life 
through faith in a good man, who was as 
an atmosphere around him, and not by 
dint of mere resolution, or by the slow 
creation of better habits. When thrown 
back on these latter influences his will 
lost its power j and he became once more 
the victim of strong drink. A man has 
often been reclaimed by the personal love 
and presence of his mother or his wife, 
kindling in him an answering affection, 
when all other influences have failed. 
The gospel method of reforming sinners 



VICTOR Y BY FAITH, 93 

is, SO to reveal Christ to thtm in all his 
loveliness of character and perfection of 
work as their Redeemer, that they shall 
have a sure expectation of victory (which 
is half the battle), and such an answering 
love as shall lift them out of the reach 
of former temptation. This inward ex- 
perience of a mighty love bearing down 
the foes of Christ is what secures, by 
what is often termed the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost, sudden as well as marvel- 
lously complete victories. What could 
be more sudden than the transformation, 
by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pente- 
cost, of the timid, trembling disciples 
into bold preachers of the gospel, ready 
to submit to martyrdom ? The Spirit ac- 
complished at once what the slow law 
of natural habit would have been years 
in working. There are many who have 



94 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

gained similar victories after deep 
thought, earnest prayer, full consecra- 
tion, and expectant faith \ some even in 
cases where a diseased physical effect 
aided a sinful habit of mind, as in the 
use of tobacco and alcohol. Such a 
sense of Christ's presence and love per- 
vaded their souls, such an assurance of 
their union in all things with him, such 
a confidence in his power, such a burn- 
ing desire to please and glorify him, 
that temptation in those old forms could 
not gain access to them. This is the 
higher life, the victorious experience, the 
deliverance from the perpetual defeat 
described in the seventh chapter of the 
Romans as characteristic of a legal ex- 
perience, and an entrance upon the 
triumph of faith unfolded in the eighth 
chapter. 



VICTORY BY FAITH. 95 

*' Faith shows the precious promise, sealed 

With the Redeemer's blood, 
And helps my feeble hope to rest 

Upon a taithful God/' 



CHAPTER X. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH'S VICTORY. 

TTAS faith, then, a philosophy? Sure- 
ly it has, — a philosophy simple and 
obvious. Why should it not have one ? 
It is in no wise opposed to reason. It 
could not be, seeing that it is, itself, the 
highest exercise of reason. For what 
can be more reasonable than to place 
implicit confidence in the word of God ? 
When Paul exclaimed, " Let God be 
true, but every man a liar ! " we are 
quite sure that his intellect spoke as well 
as his piety, and that the philosopher 
was as apparent as the saint. A philos- 
opher trusts to a law of nature, that is, 
to a physical law of God, which he has 
96 



FAITH'S VICTORY, 97 

discovered by obseryation and reason; 
believing that it will be maintained in 
operation, so that one may wisely base 
his calculations upon it, and order his 
most important plans by it. What is 
this but faith in God's natural arrange- 
ments and seeming physical pledges ? 
The saint finds a promise in the Bible, 
a book which stands accredited to his 
most careful observation and deepest 
reason, as the word of God ; and he, in 
a like exercise of mind w^ith the philoso- 
pher, puts confidence in the divine ar- 
rangements and pledge, and shapes his 
life-plan accordingly. Each uses his 
reason, weighs evidence, and trusts the 
Almighty. Each philosophizes ; and each 
exercises faith. That t'iieir attention is 
directed to different personal interests, 
and to different spheres of the divine 
7 



98 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

activity, does not affect the specfic char- 
acter of the mental act. 

Faith, then, is a genuine philosophy. 
It accepts Christ on the same ground 
upon which Sir Isaac Newton accepted 
the law of gravity. It cannot resist the 
evidence. A believer is but a spiritual 
philosopher, though he may never have 
imagined it. The principle involved was 
well stated by one, not yet enrolled 
among earth's so-called philosophers, 
but who yet spoke from the highest rea- 
son : we mean John the Baptist, who 
said of Jesus, " What he hath seen and 
heard, that he testifieth,'' and, " He that 
hath received His testimony, hath set to 
his seal that God is true." The disciple 
of Agassiz or Darwin could do no more 
in accepting the phenomena and laws of 
the physical universe is expounded by 



FAITH'S VICTORY, 99 

those skilful observers and acute reason- 
ers, who yet differ so widely in their in- 
ferences from the same facts. Let us 
take an illustrative case of faith's philos- 
ophy. 

Peter, looking out from his little fish- 
ing smack on a stormy night, saw Jesus 
at a distance, walking on the Sea of 
Galilee, and was terrified as at a ghost. 
But Jesus called out, " It is I : be not 
afraid ; " and Peter then, in a character- 
istic burst of enthusiastic confidence, re- 
plied, '^Lord, if it be thou, bid me come 
unto thee on the water," and received 
the command, "Come." Now, of 
course, faith would lead him to go, 
trusting to the Master's power and love. 
But how about philosophy ? Perhaps 
some one will say that it would have 
forbidden him to venture, because rea- 



lOO SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

son teaches that water cannot be walked 
upon as is the land. We do not accept 
the conclusion. Reason told Peter, that, 
if Jesus could so control nature as to 
walk on the water, he could enable one 
of his disciples to do the same j and so 
he started. But the wise condition of 
such enabling was faith in the power and 
willingness of the Master. Peter, after 
a few steps in the blasts of the terrible 
gale, allowed his fears to prevail over his 
faith j which was as great a blunder in 
philosophy as it was a weakness in piety. 
And so he began to sink ; but, crying to 
Jesus, was rescued, the Master saying to 
him, "O thou of little faith! wherefore 
didst thou doubt ? " And equally, from 
another point of view, might it have 
been said, " O inconsistent philosopher ! 
why didst thou fear to trust thy reason, 



FAITH'S VICTORY, loi 

which affirmed the perfect ability of the 
Master to hold thee up ? " 

And does this not shed light upon the 
philosophy of holy living, which we 
have been discussing ? To walk in puri- 
ty through this sinful world is as impos- 
sible to " the natural man " as it was 
naturally for Peter to walk on the stormy 
Sea of Galilee. But Christ led a pure 
life in this world, even as he trod se- 
curely upon the tempestuous sea ; and 
he is able to impart the Holy Spirit of 
victory to every believer, even as he 
could sustain Peter upon the waves. In 
both cases the effect to be wrought is 
within the sphere of the supernatural : 
divine power accomplishes that for 
which mere human power does not suf- 
fice. But the indispensable condition of 
receiving the divine aid is faith, contin- 



I02 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

uous faith. Peter was not to take slow 
and painful lessons from Jesus in sea- 
walking, till he had learned new aqueous 
laws, and had acquired new marine 
habits, which in twenty years would ena- 
ble him to cross the Sea of Galilee. No : 
he was to take the first step in faith, and 
the second similarly, and so the third 
and the fourth ; and, if he did not doubt, 
he could cross the sea the first time : it 
was simply a question of continuity of 
firm faith. He exercised his will ; he 
used his feet : but faith alone insured the 
resu It. We understand a true evangeli- 
cal as distinguished from a legal experi- 
ence in a religious life, to be based on a 
similar philosophy. It is not a life of 
resolutions and painful self-operatings to 
fornj. habits by a gradual law of nature ; 
but it is a life of faith in Christ at each 



FAITH'S VICTORY. 103 

successive moment. The soul acts in 
varied duties, as Peter took steps on the 
sea; but it expects the spiritual success 
only from an indwelling Christ, whose 
grace flows into the trustful soul without 
intermission, as support would have been 
given to Peter all the way from the ves- 
sel to the side of Christ, had he con- 
quered his doubts. If faith be present, 
the success can be as perfect the first as 
the hundredth time. "We walk by 
faith," says the apostle, laying down the 
spiritual philosophy ; and, when he gives 
it the form of personal testimony, it is 
still the same : " I am crucified with 
Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not I, 
but Christ liveth in me : and the life 
which I now live in the flesh I live by 
the faith of the Son of God, who loved 
me, and gave himself for me." 



104 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

Are there, then, no holy habits formed 
by the Christian, which gradually be- 
come a second nature, and a law of his 
being ? Certainly ; but these are the re- 
sults of the victories gained by faith, and 
will be rapid in their formation in pro- 
portion not to the agony and force of 
our will-work, but to the continuousness, 
simplicity, and entireness of our trust in 
Jesus as a sanctifying Saviour. His is 
the inward power, the ever-inflowing 
grace, by which we should fully expect 
to be kept moment by moment, and thus 
hour by hour, and day by day. Such 
faith itself becomes a habit of the soul, 
and is properly the one all-inclusive 
spiritual habit, which keeps the heart in 
peace, and the will in strength. Such is 
the biblical philosophy of sanctification. 
With the Christian poet it says, -^ 



FAITH'S VICTORY. 105 

" Faith, mighty faith, the promise seeSj 
And looks to that alone ; 
Laughs at impossibilities, 
And ciies^ It shall be done \ ^' 



CHAPTER XL 

faith's habit of victory. 

L^IRST things are usually hard things. 
One is awkward at them. The fin- 
gers of the raw apprentice are all thumbs. 
The sailor-bo}^ who makes his first voy- 
age seems out of place everywhere, — on 
deck, aloft, or in the forecastle. The 
child in its first steps does more falling 
than walking. A new beginner at any 
work has to keep his thoughts about him, 
or he easily forgets the thing to be done, 
or the way in which it is done : more- 
over, he does it at all only in a very 
conscious state of mind, and by distinct 
acts of will. Did the reader ever learn 
to play upon the piano-forte? How 
io6 



FAITH'S HABIT OF VICTORY, 107 

about those early weeks and months of 
practice ? What attention was needed to 
find the proper key on the finger-board ; 
then to strike it with precision ; then to 
gain the faculty of using two hands at 
once, and of seeing simultaneously four 
parts of the musical score ; then to ac- 
quire ease, rapidity, and grace of execu- 
tion ! How stiff the fingers were ! How 
the wrist and arm ached ! What a des- 
perate purpose was required to produce 
the sounds ! But, after a time, the eye 
fell into a habit of seeing every thing at a 
glance, and the hand of gliding over the 
keys by a kind of instinctive movement, 
which cost no effort. Then it was no 
task, but a positive pleasure to perform 
on the instrument 

The religious life has an analogy with 
this experience in natural things. Though 



io8 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

it has faith as its distinctive exercise, 
and is not thrown upon mere self-exertion 
and natural law, but receives supernatural 
grace as its sustaining power, yet the 
faith must be developed from a germ. 
" Lord, I believe : help thou my un- 
belief ! " is a confession and prayer which 
every convert has occasion to offer. 
This is not because faith itself is difficult 
to understand, or hard to exercise, as a 
single act. What can be more simple, 
even to a child's apprehension, than 
trust in superior power, wisdom, knowl- 
edge, and love ? What else is the whole 
life of childhood? And to trust God 
ought surely to be far easier than to 
trust man. Certainly we can have no 
difficulty in understanding what it is to 
have faith in God. And when we think 
of our weakness, ignorance, and sin, and 



FAITH'S JiABIT OF VICTORY. 109 

of the divine offer to forgive, enlighten, 
purify, and strengthen us for Christ's sake, 
if we yield ourselves fully to him, expect- 
ing him to be true to his promise, it ought 
not to be at all hard thus to rely upon 
him. 

But the trouble arises from this : we 
have not been accustomed to live by 
faith. That is an entirely new state of 
mind. Faith sees only God ; and we 
have been wont, in our life of sin, to see 
every thing but God. We ruled him out 
of our minds, of set purpose, till we 
came no longer to think of him \ not even 
to associate him with things which would 
seem almost necessarily to suggest him. 
We put self in his place, acted from 
self and for self, carried self in thought, 
pleased self in desire, relied on self in 
effort. What a revolution it was in the 



no SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

soul, to deny self, to crucify self, to re- 
nounce self as either aim or source of 
power ! What a novel act, to look away 
to God, to feel shut up entirely to him, 
to put the soul in the simply receptive 
relation, to depend upon him for pardon 
of past sin, for purification of heart, for 
each moment's wisdom and efficiency 
and victory. Unless we have unusually 
clear and consistent instruction at this 
point, we shall make a mixed affair of 
it, and trust God a little, now and then, 
here and there, and forget to trust him 
for all things, at all times. Thus we 
easily slip out of the new mode of living 
by trusting, and fall back upon our wills 
and resolution*. Thereby, stripped of 
power, we yield to temptation, come 
under a sense of condemnation, and find 
a war between conscience and desire, in 



FAITH'S HABIT OF VICTORY, iii 

which our poor cra^ren will takes now the 
one and then the other side, without 
gaining any deliverance. And so a long 
period may elapse without escape from 
this bondage : and all from a lack of 
faith. 

What is needed is, to come into such a 
clear conviction of the truth that the 
soul lives, spiritually, only by faith, that 
the thoughts shall be exercised chiefly in 
keeping God before the mind as its all 
in all. This, which requires at first, from 
its being an unaccustomed attitude of 
the soul, a distinct and conscious effort 
of mind, develops ere long into a delight- 
ful mental habit. The Christian comes 
to associate God v/ith every thing, to see 
God in every thing, to rely on God for 
every thing. His thoughts are thus 
turned into virtual prayers, even when 



112 SPIRITtlAL VICTORY. 

no words of petition are on his lips. He 
is ever in the expectant, trustful attitude. 
It is much as if one had suddenly in- 
jured a limb, or suffered a paralysis of 
it, so as to be incapable of walking with- 
out a crutch, or the arm of a friend. 
But one not in the habit of such depend- 
ence would need, at first, to think of it 
all the time, and would easily forget to 
lean, and thus would meet with many a 
fall. Yet in a little time he would acquire 
the habit, and would then lean upon his 
support as a matter of course, without 
conscious thought about it. Our deepest 
purposes invariably assume this perma- 
nent and almost unconscious form. 
Faith may do so ; and, as piety ripens, 
the soul carries, deep down below all its 
passing and surface exercises, a calm, 
steady, perpetual trust in God. This is 
what we mean by the habit of faith. 



FAITH'S HABIT OF VICTORS. 113 

The growth of this is the growth of 
sanctification ; for in proportion as the 
Christian fully trusts his Saviour is he 
filled with love, and kept from the power 
of Satan ; as John teaches when he says, 
'' Ye are of God, little children, and have 
overcome them : because greater is he 
that is in you, than he that is in the 
world." " And we have known and 
believed the love that God hath to us. 
God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love 
dwelleth in God, and God in him. Here- 
in is our love made perfect, that we may 
have boldness in the day of judgment : 
because as he is, so are we in this world. 
There is no fear in love ; but perfect love 
casteth out fear : because fear hath tor- 
ment. He that feareth is not made per- 
feet in love." 
8 



114 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

" Happy, Saviour, would I be 
If I could but trust in thee ! — 
Trust thy wisdom me to guide ; 
Trust thy goodness to provide ; 
Trust thy saving love and power ; 
Trust thee every day and hour ; 

'* Trust thy blood to cleanse my soul ; 
Trust thy grace to make me whole ; 
Trust thee living, dying, too ; 
Trust thee all my journey through ; 
Trust thee till my feet shall be 
Planted on the crystal sea." 



CHAPTER XII. 

VICTORY OVER EVIL HABITS. 

'T^HE gospel idea of a victory over 
sin, by the instrumentality of faith 
in Christ as an ever-present, sanctify- 
ing Saviour, is to many a stumbling- 
block, because of their conception of 
the ingrained character of evil habit. 
To overcome a habit of sin, whether in 
general or in a specific direction, seems 
to them necessarily a gradual result, 
slowly wrought out by a natural law of 
mind, as holy acts insensibly build up 
new and opposite habits. We have 
already said, that, while such a process 
and result is indeed all that natural rea- 
son might teach us to expect, it is not all 

"5 



Ii6 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

that the gospel reveals to Christian faith 
and hope, nor is it all that the experience 
of the saints gives us ground to expect. 
The New-Testament doctrine rises above 
the ethical rules of ancient or modern 
philosophers, introducing a supernatural 
element which renders possible spiritual 
victories which were otherwise hope- 
less. 

Can faith in Christ suddenly destroy, 
or at least fully suspend, the power of a 
sinful habit ? Is it the best thing we can 
do, to array our resolutions and struggles 
against the tyranny of old despotic hab- 
its, in a fitful, variable, life-long contest, 
only expecting sufficient divine aid to 
prevent our being utterly overwhelmed, 
and to enable us to persevere in a Chris- 
tian course ? Must the Christian char- 
acter rise with the slowness of a coral 



VICTORY OVER EVIL HABITS, 117 

reef in the ocean, and await the deposit 
of act upon act, till at last a new and 
holy habit lifts itself above the waves of 
temptation ? Or may we look to Jesus 
for instant victory, for an immediate 
rescue, which shall be complete at the 
time, and as permanent in result as the 
faith on which it depends ? These are 
questions touching the vitals of Chris- 
tian experience ; and to many they pre- 
sent difficulties past solution. 
Well may Faber exclaim, — 

** Yet habits linger in the soul : 

More grace, O Lord ! more grace I 
More sweetness from thy loving heart, 
More sunshine from thy face ! " 

For our own part, we gather courage 
and hope from such an initial fact as re- 
generation ; which, if it be a fact, seems 



Ii8 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

to be a pledge of all that needs to fol- 
low. It is a divine intervention to break 
the current of sinful forces, and to bring 
in a restoration of character which is 
above nature. In effect, it is a victory 
over the soul's previously unbroken 
habit of sin : it is a moral revolution, 
which dethrones Satan and enthrones 
Christ : it is a new birth : it makes a 
new man. Regeneration starts one, 
then, on a higher plane and under a 
supernatural influence. Surely we may 
expect, ever after, higher than natural re- 
sults, — something more than the gradual 
development of mental laws under hu- 
man efforts. So sudden and grand a 
triumph, at the moment of conversion, 
insured by the Holy Spirit, opens up a 
succession of new possibilities to the 
believing soul. If thrt death-blow is 



VICTORY OVER EVIL HABITS. 119 

then given to the sin-principle, so that a 
Christian Hfe starts into being on the 
instant, it is no stretch of faith into pre- 
sumption to expect sudden, specific de- 
liverances from the particular tyrannies 
of sin. 

Such deliverances often occur in con- 
nection with conversion. Men who have 
been notorious gamblers, and for whom 
the card-table has had an irresistible 
fascination, have suddenly become fol- 
lowers of Christ, and have never touched 
a card or made a bet thereafter. Liber- 
tines, to whom female beauty was a per- 
petual snare, have been converted 
instantly to an unbroken purity of life. 
Drunkards have been reclaimed in re- 
vivals of religion, who never subse- 
quently fell, even for a moment. These 
are instances in which an outward habit 



I20 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

has been permanently overcome from 
the instant of conversion, and a victory 
has so far been gained continuously over 
all the remaining inward solicitations to 
those forms of evil. But what evidence 
is there of corresponding triumphs 
where the sinful habit is not physical, 
but purely mental ? What can be ex- 
pected in the case of anger, impatience, 
revenge, covetousness, discontent envy, 
ambition, and similar tendencies and 
dispositions ? 

We heard of an incident not long since, 
which is in point. A certain lady was 
of a peculiarly irritable temper ; and its 
unlovely exhibitions caused her, as a 
professed Christian, the greatest mortifi- 
cation and the deepest grief. She strug- 
gled and prayed, she resolved and wept, 
all apparently in vain. Every purpose 



VICTORY OVER EVIL HABITS, I2I 

was swept away in the excitement of 
even a slight temptation on this sensi- 
tive side, till she despaired of victory. 
Finally she was urged at a meeting, to 
confide by simple faith in the power of 
Christ to keep her, and to make a full- 
hearted surrender of her entire being to 
him for that purpose. She embraced 
the thought with earnestness, and con- 
sciously laid her soul in the hands of 
Jesus, inwardly praying all the way back 
to her house. This was the more appro- 
priate, as her peculiar trials and tempta- 
tions were at home ; and these she had 
always declared to be so many, that it 
was impossible for her to rise above 
them. Opening the front-door, she saw 
a domestic violating one of her most 
explicit rules, by carrying a slop-pail 
down the front stairs ; and, to maks the 



122 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

matter worse, the domestic was so 
alarmed at the sight of her mistress, 
that she dropped the pail ; and the water 
flowed down the stairs and over the car- 
pet into the hall. The lady uttered not 
a word, but whispered over and over, 
"Jesus, help me ! Jesus, help me ! " and 
gained the victory. With entire com- 
posure she went in, and from that mo- 
ment found no difficulty in controlling 
her before ungovernable temper. 

This is by no means an isolated case, 
and gives us the secret of spiritual victory. 
Mere prayers and tears, resolutions and 
struggles, put forth in the legal spirit, 
avail little but to express grief and peni- 
tence, and to keep one in the unrest of 
defeat, as described in the seventh chap- 
ter of the Epistle to the Romans. What 
is needed is a spec'-^c faith in Christ for 



VICTORY OVER EVIL HABITS, 123 

present and all-sufficient help, — a mind 
that is expectant of triumph through 
him. One may dwell with profit on the 
meaning of the first word in that apos- 
tolic precept : " Reckoit ye also your- 
selves to be dead indeed unto sin, but 
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord." It is a great thing to "reckon" 
upon a given fact, — to count upon it, to 
base our expectations and plans upon it ; 
especially if it be one of God's redemp- 
tive facts, to credit which honors his love 
and faithfulness. To such an expectant 
state of soul God responds by an inflow- 
ing of divine grace which fills and pre- 
serves it. In this way evil habit meets 
a speedy overthrow, such as mere 
natural causation would fail to accom- 
plish. 



124 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

" But, of all the foes we meet, 
None so oft mislead our feet, 
None betray us into sin, 
Like the foes that dwell within. 
Yet let nothing spoil our peace : 
Christ shall also conquer these." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

VICTORY OVER PHYSICAL HABIT. 

TT 7E continue the subject of the re- 
lation of faith in Christ to evil 
habits, because of its importance and of 
its obscurity and difficulty. Many who 
mourn over their bondage to certain 
forms of sin, which have assumed the 
character of habits, hastily assume that 
these are invincible. In support of such 
an assertion, they relate disheartening 
experiences. They tell of unsuccessful 
struggles, oft repeated, but ending in- 
variably in defeat. They resolved to 
try to reform their habit (the use of 
opium, or of tobacco, or of intoxicating 
liquor, it may have been ) ; and so they 

125 



126 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

ceased from the favorite indulgence for 
a few days or weeks. But they felt so 
miserable without the customary stimu- 
lus, that their resolution sooner or 
later gave way. After two or three such 
experiments they despaired of victory, 
and concluded to content themselves 
with moderation instead of abstinence. 
It is usually evident in these cases, that, 
at the outset, they had little faith in 
their success. They doubted whether 
they should succeed : they believed, per- 
haps, that they should not. Yet they 
were willing, under conscience-pressure, 
to try. How often that word "try'' 
hides a lack of whole-heartedness, an 
absence of courage, and a want of genu- 
ine faith ! It is very deceptive ; for the 
man thinks it is a word of modesty and 
humility, indicative of self-distrust, when 



PHYSICAL HABIT, 127 

it really means a wavering cf purpose 
and a distrust of Christ. Hence, when 
a spiritual victory is to be won, which is 
called for by the honor of the Master, 
and the necessities of his own soul, in- 
stead of saying, " By the help of Jesus I 
will do this thing," he falteringly says, 
"I will try;" and plainly enough he 
rather expects to fail. Then, having 
failed, he pacifies conscience by the 
thought that he tried^ and found the effort 
to be of fruitless. His case is peculiar. 
He is sorry that he began the evil prac- 
tice j and he advises his boys (in vain, 
usually) not to take the first step in that 
direction ; but he is now too old to undo 
the past, and to forn^/ better habits ! 

And is this the best that Christ can 
do for such a man? If he were fully 
trusted to work out deliverance, could he 



128 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

not do it ? And would he not ? Sup- 
pose the man were to go to Jesus in all 
directness of speech and in all simplicity 
of heart, and were to say, " Lord Jesus, 
if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 
Qeliver me, for the healing of my soul, 
for the honor of thy name, for the ad- 
vancement of thy cause. Give me the 
victory by the power of thy Holy Spirit, 
in this specific thing. Show that thy 
grace is sufficient for me in this respect, 
as it was for Paul in his particular weak- 
ness. For that purpose I commit to 
thee my body and soul, assured that 
thou wilt make me more than con- 
queror." Suppose this to be the believing 
application : would the Saviour disap- 
point that faith, and put it to shame ? 
It seems to us little short of infidelity 
so to affirm. 



PHYSICAL HABIT. 129 

We do not know that we ever met 
with a man who testified that his failure 
to overcome an evil habit followed such 
specific consecration and faith. It may- 
have followed penitent tears, deep re- 
morse, sincere resolutions, and sorrowing 
prayers ; and especially it may have fol- 
lowed a half-considered purpose, or a 
good-natured promise made to a fellow- 
man. No case, however, is recalled to 
our memory, in which a Christian has 
said, "^ I trusted Jesus to carry me 
through this struggle ; I verily expected 
the victory by his grace ; I rested on his 
promise : but no deliverance came." 

Does any one talk of the unreason- 
ableness of expecting miracles ? and 
does he represent the victory of which 
we speak as a miracle ? We know not 
that it is any more of a miracle than 
9 



130 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

ordinary answers to prayer ; which 
surely imply a divine intervention in 
earthly affairs, and in the production of 
inward and outward effects, in the spirit- 
ual and in the physical world. It is not 
for us to limit the operation of the grace 
of Christ in a legitimate case, such as 
is the one under consideration. The 
most wonderful physical effects are pro- 
duced by purely mental causes, outside 
of the sphere of religion and of the ap- 
peals of prayer. Health is affected in 
the way of benefit and injury, the color 
of the hair is suddenly changed, a bodily 
appetite is impaired or destroyed, and 
life itself sometimes is taken, by an ex- 
perience of joy or of sorrow, of hope or 
of fear. Neither physicians nor philoso- 
phers can resolve the mysterious inter- 
relations of body and spirit. It does not 



PHYSICAL HABIT. 131 

stumble us, therefore, that redemption 
should be thought equal to all necessary 
spiritual results with their physical con- 
comitants and conditions. And as to 
alleged facts, we are content to receive 
intelligent and credible testimony. 

A' little tract, by Rev. W. H. Boole, 
called " The Wonders of Grace," pub- 
lished at the "Water-street Tract 
Rooms," New York City, adduces many 
striking cases in point. One is of an 
officer in a church in New York, who had 
used tobacco for forty years, making, 
during that time, many efforts to abandon 
the practice, but always failing because 
of the resultant inward gnawing. But 
he was brought to an act of specific faith 
in Jesus to save him from the appetite ; 
and now, after several years, he testifies : 
" From that hour all desire left me ; and 



132 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

I have ever since hated what I once so 
fondly loved." Another is of a promi- 
nent church-member in Brooklyn, N.Y., 
who had used tobacco for thirty years, and 
could not endure to be without a cigar 
in his mouth, and sometimes even rose 
and smoked in the night. After many 
failures to overcome the habit, one night, 
when alone, he cast himself on his 
Saviour for just this victory ; and from 
that hour was delivered from the desire 
as well as the outward act, and now won- 
ders that he ever loved the filthy prac- 
tice. A certain old lady who lived near 
Westbrook, Conn., aged seventy, was a 
confirmed opium-eater, and used daily an 
amount sufiicient to kill twenty persons. 
She was led_to see that the habit was a 
sin ; and as such she abandoned it with 
specific application to Christ to save her 



PHYSICAL HABIT. 133 

from it. She was heard, and Jived for 
two years afterwards, free from any 
desire for that drug. A similar case 
was that of a carpenter in Brooklyn, 
N.Y., who, from taking morphine to 
allay the pain of a fractured leg, fell into 
its habitual use, till he almost lived 
upon it for several years after his re- 
covery. He once swallowed, in the 
presence of several physicians, a dose 
which it was calculated would destroy 
the lives of two hundred ordinary men. 
Not long since he was made to look at this 
as sin, and tried to break off the habit, ab- 
staining with an alarming re-action, till 
fiv<i physicians declared that death would 
ensue if he did not resume it. This he 
did for a year, but then, on a certain 
Sunday evening, broke off aga^.n, casting 
himself by faith on Christ \ from which 



134 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

moment .the desire left him, and has 
never returned, and he has experienced 
no re-action or other ill effect, but has 
greatly improved in health. 

Such facts, if well authenticated, should 
encourage the most despairing. We do 
not see that they are out of analogy 
with many admitted facts, which are con- 
nected with the relations of the body to the 
mind. Certainly they speak hope to pro- 
fessed Christians, who are insnared by 
wrong physical habits, and to drunkards 
and opium-eaters, who seem to be " led 
captive by Satan at his will." Let no 
Christian limit the victories of faith 
within the sphere of redemption from 
sin. 

'' Thou, O Christ, art all I want ; 
More than all in thee I find ; 
Raif e the fallen, cheer the faint, 
Heal the sick, and lead the blind. 



PHYSICAL HABIT, 135 

Just and Holy is thy name : 
I am all unrighteousness ; 
Vile and full of sin I am : 
Thou art full of truth and grace." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PRAYER A LEGITIMATE WEAPON. 

nr^HE faith which has been urged 
naturally relies upon prayer, as a 
legitimate weapon in the spiritual con- 
flict ; but the right to use this weapon is 
called in question by the philosophers. 
This is no new experience of the saints. 
In the apostolic times there were two 
classes of opposers against whom Chris- 
tianity had to make its way, — the Jews 
and the Gentiles. The one of these re- 
quired " a sign/' while the others " sought 
after wisdom." The former would apply 
to the new faith a miraculous test, while 
the latter must needs see in it an infalli- 
ble philosophy. Neither demand was 
136 



A LEGITIMATE WEAPON, 137 

without reason ; and neither failed, in 
reality, to be met. Yet neither the mira- 
cle nor the philosophy was the chief at- 
traction or principal value of the gospel, 
but rather its adaptation to the spiritual 
wants of mankind. Hence both the 
miracle-askers and the philosophy-seekers 
were liable to be disappointed, not com- 
ing to the investigation with spiritual 
hunger, but with a mere natural curiosity. 
But God does not put himself under ex- 
amination by that spirit ; and still less 
does he submit to tests fore-appointed by 
mere cavillers, — counting it unworthy of 
man's higher nature, and of the reverence 
due to himself. So " the wise and pru- 
dent " often, yea, generally, missed the 
right conclusion, and turned with con- 
tempt from the religion of the Nazarene ; 
while in the very age of miracles, and 



138 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

when they were natural incidents of the 
gospel as a divine power, the sign-worship- 
ping Jew not seldom asked in vain for the 
heaven-sent proof. " An evil and adul- 
terous generation seeketh after a sign." 

It is remarkable how history repeats 
itself in spiritual respects as well as 
otherwise. The unbelief of the human 
heart expresses itself now as of old. It 
has the same difficulties : it offers the 
same objections : it makes the same pro- 
posals. Every new sceptical volume, 
every additional article in a rationalistic 
periodical, illustrates this assertion : only 
it will be noticed that our modern 
doubters are not content with rejecting 
the gospel of Christ, but must needs 
take ground that shall make men hope- 
less of any gospel. They undermine 
the foundations even of natural religion, 



A LEGITIMATE WEAPON, 139 

and cut men off from all direct approach 
to God. This appears in the antipathy 
which they show towards prayer, and in 
the pains which they ceaselessly take to 
prove that it is unphilosophical and ab- 
surd. 

The famous anonymous letter (the 
authorship of which was afterwards ac- 
knowledged by Sir Henry Thompson, 
M.D.), communicated with a favorable 
note by Prof. Tyndall to " The Contem- 
porary Review," ^ggested that it was 
time to put the question about prayer to 
a practical test, as would be done in the 
case of a disputed principle in natural 
science. The writer thus stated the 
case : " I ask that one single ward or 
hospital, under the care of first-rate phy- 
sicians and surgeons, containing certain 
numbers of patients afflicted with those 



140 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

diseases which have been, best studied, 
and of which the mortality rates are best 
known, whether the diseases are those 
which are treated by medical or by sur- 
gical remedies, should be, during a period 
of not less, say, than three or five years, 
made the object of special prayer by the 
whole body of the faithful ; and that, at 
the end of that time, the mortality rates 
should be compared with the past rates, 
and also with that of other leading hos- 
pitals similarly well •managed, during 
the same period. Granting that time is 
given, and numbers are sufficiently large, 
so as to insure a minimum of error from 
accidental disturbing causes, the experi- 
ment will be exhaustive and complete." 

To a superficial thinker such a test 
would easily appear to be reasonable ; 
and it might be claimed that the institu- 



A LEGITIMATE WEAPON. 141 

tion in Germany known as the Prayer 
Cure really meets it ; for that brings for- 
ward much proof of the power of prayer 
to effect the healing of disease, indirectly 
if not directly. And there is reason for 
the display of the power in that case ; 
since the institution proposes no object 
to aimless curiosity, or to cavilling scep- 
ticism, but is maintained on truly spir- 
itual principles, — the prayer for healing 
being always carefully associated with 
efforts for the moral health of the afHicted. 
The grand difficulty with the proposed 
test is, that it wholly misses the true idea 
and philosophy of prayer, as set forth in 
the Bible. Sceptical scientists make 
sorry work when they undertake to reason 
about religion. They do not apprehend 
the first principles of a moral as distin- 
guished from a material system. They 



142 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

partially understand nature, but have no 
right conception of the super-nature. 
God's moral universe has its peculiar 
adaptations of cause and effect, suited 
to its high spiritual ends. Prayer is a 
divine institution for human training on 
the side of character and not of mere 
science. It is related to divine provi- 
dence, and not to natural causes. That 
providence is ordered with entire refer- 
ence to the education of the human race 
in love, faith, humility, reverence, and 
obedience, and is made to hinge largely 
on prayer, or the application of individ- 
uals and communities to God for aid. 
The idea is not that prayer enlightens 
God as to the fact, or as to the supply of 
human wants ; or that it persuades him 
to change his mind, at man's entreaty: 
but prayer is a wise condition for God to 



A LEGITIMATE WEAPON. 143 

annex to benefits which he is already in- 
clined to bestow, in order that when 
given they may be attended with the best 
results. For spiritual ends it is often 
better that a thing should not be given, 
than that it should be given to a state of 
mind different from that which is secured 
by prayer, and by prayer alone. For 
God's great object is, to draw the soul as 
much as possible into a felt connection 
with himself in all things ; that by a per- 
petual faith it may consciously live and 
rejoice in him. This spirit, essential to 
the good of the soul, Is also essential to 
acceptance with God ; for, as is said by 
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
^' He that cometh to God must believe 
that he is, and that he is the rewarder of 
them that diligently seek him." As 
prayer is the chief means of seeking 



T44 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

God, it may thus be understood that the 
two fundamental principles of religion 
are faith in God's existence, and faith in 
the efficacy of prayer. It is difficult to 
believe that any soul can fail of the 
spirit and results of religion, which truly 
prays. Many a sceptic has been re- 
claimed, when every other strand of 
faith had broken but a belief that God 
would hear prayer, and would guide the 
soul in the search after truth. 

But it is evident, on a moment's 
thought, that to make prayer a bare ap- 
plication in words, irrespective of spirit, 
or to tender it to man unconditionally, as 
a power in nature, to be subject only to 
his will, like steam, or electricity, or 
gravity, would be to defeat its prime ob- 
ject. Yet the test proposed to be used 
in a hospital goes upon the idea, that 



A LEGITIMATE WEAPON, 145 

Christians claim that prayer involves a 
promise on the part of God to do every 
thing which men may ask ; a pledge to 
place his omnipotence at their disposal. 
It needs not the mind of a philosopher 
to see that such a pledge would be a 
curse, and not a blessing. Power is a 
benefit, only as it is guided by wisdom ; 
and until Christians become omniscient, 
God Could not, with safety to the interests 
involved, bind himself to do whatever 
they should ask in prayer. Hence he 
requires prayer to be offered with humil- 
ity and submission to the divine will, 
taking, as an example, the prayer of 
Jesus in the garden : " Nevertheless, 
not as I wilt, but as thou wilt." As 
death has not ceased to be the universal 
human doom, it would be folly to claim 
that the sick will always be healed ip. 



146 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

answer to prayer, so that the patients of 
a hospital-ward may be all cured, pro- 
vided a prayer-meeting be held. More- 
over, to propound such a test in a 
sceptical spirit, as does the writer of the 
letter, is at variance with the require- 
ments of the Bible as to faith, and is 
only paralleled by the demand of the 
mocking Jews, when the Saviour hung 
upon the cross : " If he be the King 
of Israel, let him now come down from 
the cross, and we will believe him." 
In vain will the philosophers seek to 
wrest from us our chief weapon, leaving 
us. defenceless amid the dangers of life. 
We know its value too well, to be thus 
despoiled. 

'•'• Restraining prayer we cease to fight ; 

Prayer makes the Christian's armoi bright ; 
And Satan trembles when he sees 
The weakest saint upon his knees." 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE WEAPON TWO-EDGED. 

TF prayer be a legitimate weapon to 
use against the enemies of our souls, 
the question arises, May it be used in 
a physical as well as a spiritual direc- 
tion ? Is the sword two-edged ? Let us 
see. 

The letter of a friend, which Prof. 
Tyndall gave to the public with com- 
mendation, proposing a hospital test for 
prayer, called forth such a protest from 
the Christian world, that he felt the ne- 
cessity of explaining his views. This he 
did in a communication to " The Contem- 
porary Review," entitled " Science and 
Religion," in which he resented the vi- 

147 



148 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

tuperative assaults of some of his theo- 
logical critics, and asserted his own 
faith in prayer within certain limitations. 
He seems to believe in it as a natural 
instinct of men conscious of need, as 
having a happy influence on the mind, 
and as finding a possible sphere in the 
spiritual realm ; but he denies any 
room to its operation within the physical 
universe, which is controlled by un- 
changing laws with which God will not 
interfere. He does not deny that God 
could interpose in the physical realm, 
so far as his power is concerned ; but he 
affirms that there is no reason to believe 
that God does so interpose, or that his 
world-plan admits of such an act. The 
theory of prayer has no proof. Hence 
no one should pray for any result of a 
physical nature. His position will be 
plain from the following citations : — 



THE WEAPON TWO-EDGED. 149 

" The bone of contention at present 
is the physical value of prayer, r . . 
Physical nature is not its legitimate 
domain. This conclusion, moreover, 
must be based on pure physical evidence, 
and not on any inherent unreasonable- 
ness in the act of prayer. The theory 
that the system of nature is under the 
control of a Being who changes phenom- 
ena in compliance with the prayers of 
men, is, in my opinion, a perfectly legiti- 
mate one. ... It is matter of experience 
that an earthly father, who is at the same 
time both wise and tender, listens to 
the requests of his children, and, if they 
do not ask amiss, takes pleasure in 
granting their requests. We know also 
that this compliance extends to the al- 
teration, within certain limits, of the 
current events of earth. With this su^- 



150 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

gestion offered by our experience, it is 
no departure from scientific method, to 
place behind natural phenomena a uni- 
versal Father, who, in answer to the 
prayers of his children, alters the cur- 
rents of those phenomena. Thus far 
Theology and Science go hand in hand. 
. . . But without verification a theoretic 
conception is a mere figment of the 
intellect ; and I am sorry to find us part- 
ing company at this point. . . . Often 
unreasonable if not contemptible, in its 
purer forms prayer hints at disciplines 
which few of us can neglect without 
moral loss. But no good can come of 
giving it a delusive value, by claiming 
for it a power in physical nature. It 
may strengthen the heart to meet life's 
losses, and thus indirectly promote 
physical well-being." 



THE WEAPON TWO-EDGED, 151 

Now, as human reason is the grand 
test with the anti-prayer philosophers, 
let us see if the position here assumed 
stands to reason. Prayer is admitted to 
be a natural instinct of a dependent 
creature like man. He is in need ; and 
prayer to God, the spontaneous utter- 
ance of his felt wants, is as natural and 
inevitable as any other instinctive act, — 
as the appeal of the young of any animal 
to the parent, or of human children to 
their fathers and mothers. Now, will 
Prof. Tyndall tell us of any instance in 
God's creation, in which an instinct is 
implanted, for which there is no pro- 
vision in the world without? The nev/- 
born child has an instinctive desire of 
milk ; and behold, the mother's breast 
furnishes the supply. Every instinct 
points to an outward fact. This is as 



152 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

sure as any thing taught by science. It 
is one of the facts of science. But if 
that be true, then the instinct of prayer 
in the human soul indicates infallibly 
a provision in the divine arrangements 
to meet it, — a provision which is as 
truly part of the system of things undei 
which we live as is the law of gravity. 
Man prays, because over against this 
instinctive utterance of his sense of 
need stands the fact of a prayer-hearing 
heavenly Father. We claim this upon 
scientific grounds, as the teaching of 
nature ^'.tself. 

But does this instinct limit itself to 
one class of wants ? Are men never 
instinctively prompted to pjray for physi- 
cal relief ? Does the sick man offer no 
petition for restoration to health ? Does 
the mother beseech no divine pity, when 



THE WEAPON TWO-EDGED, 153 

her child is threatened with death ? 
Does the shipwrecked sailor utter no cry 
to God ? Have stricken communities no 
ground for an appeal to the Father 
above, when drought, famine, pestilence, 
or other physical calamity, impends, or 
perhaps already crushes ? Surely the 
instinct may be said to be strong and 
universal in precisely such cases, as the 
whole history of mankind attests. The 
soul would despair, the man would often 
die, could one not pray for relief in physi- 
cal distress. But, if we may rightfully 
and must necessarily pray, then there is 
a provision in God's scheme for an 
answer within the physical realm. 

It does not suffice to say that prayer, 
although not obtaining the thing sought, 
aids the soul by its incidental influence ; 
by lifting it into communicn with God, 



154 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

and filling it with noble and pure 
thoughts. It cannot do even this except 
as the soul believes in its efficacy as 
petition ; for the moment a man ceases 
to think that prayer will avail to obtain 
the needed blessing, and is convinced by 
the philosophers that it is only a medita- 
tion which re-acts upon the mind for its 
spiritual good, he will no longer continue 
the vain form of petition for divine aid. 
And what a curious instinct that would 
be, which should prompt to an act which 
has no direct meaning and use, but is 
only incidentally of value ! As if a babe 
should have an instinct for milk, not to 
receive milk from the mother's breast, 
but only to nestle by her side, and be 
warmed by her body ! or, as if the 
instinct for milk was only to enable the 
child to comfort itself by the presence 



THE WEAPON TWO-EDGED, 155 ! 

and feeling of the mother, while it died 
from the lack of milk ! 

But why should Prof. Tyndall place 
this limitation on prayer ? What is there 
in the physical universe which makes 
prayer inapplicable to it, while the spirit- 
ual realm is open to its influence ? He 
will reply, perhaps, that the physical 
universe has fixed laws, in accordance 
with which its events occur. That is 
true \ but the same may be affirmed of 
the spiritual universe. It also has fixed 
laws, appropriate to the nature of mind ; 
and in accordance with those mental 
laws events take place. If divine laws 
rule prayer out of the material world, 
there can be no place for it in the spirit- 
ual world. Yea, as the spiritual realm 
is the higher of the two, its laws may be 
properly conceived of as more inviolable 



156 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

than those of physics, and as, therefore, 
a greater obstacle to prayer. Prof. 
Tyndall's philosophy reverses the order 
of reason. When one thinks of the 
mystery of thought, of feeling, and of 
will, and of the difficulty of harmonizing 
divine action with creature-freedom, it is 
much easier to conceive of prayer as 
being answered in reference to physical 
than to spiritual results. It must be 
easier to operate in the lower than in 
the higher realm. Prof. TyndalFs dis- 
tinction operates against him; and his 
limitation (if one be valid at all) is quite 
misplaced. Indeed, from some of his 
language we doubt whether he would 
affirm that prayer brings any direct an- 
swer from God even in the spiritual 
realm ; though at present he only dis- 
cusses its physical relations. 



THE WEAPON TWO-EDGED. 157 

But the supposed necessity for the 
limitation arises from a misconception 
of the relation of prayer to divine law. 
Prayer being as much provided for in 
the divine system as is gravity, electri- 
city, heat, or light in physics, or as are 
thought, feeling, and will in the spirit 
realm, we may be sure that it is not out 
of harmony with the other forces. There 
is no need of supposing that when prayer 
operates in either realm, there is any 
setting-aside of the laws of the realm. 
There is simply a new use, combination, 
and direction of them by the unseen 
divine will, analogous to the effects con- 
stantly wrought by the human will in 
both of these same realms. Take a 
simple illustration. A child asks his 
father to do a certain thing. His father 
consents ; and the child goes away satis- 



158 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

fied. In doing it, the father produces, 
in answer to his child's request, results 
that otherwise would not have occurred. 
Those results grow out of the direct use 
of some of nature's laws, the counterac- 
tion of others, and the combination of 
others. We will suppose that chestnuts 
were to be gathered and boiled. To do 
this the father counteracts the law of 
gravity by bringing his own body into 
action, by throwing sticks into the tree, 
and by picking up and bringing in the 
chestnuts. He uses that law in causing 
the nuts to fall from the tree to the 
ground. He combines the operation of 
various chemical laws, as he kindles a 
fire, heats the water, and boils the nuts 
to softness. When the boy returns, he 
finds that his prayer has been answered 
in a way unseen by himself, and within 



THE WEAPON TWO-EDGED. 159 

the physical realm. Now, why cennot 
God as truly and as easily answer prayer 
in the realm of physics, in a way unseen 
by us, and without suspension or violation 
of the laws of nature ? We pray for the 
recovery of a sick friend. No miracle is 
needed in order to secure an answer, 
unless it be a case in which organic 
destruction has already occurred, as 
when the lungs have been consumed. 
In such a case God has already indicated 
his will ; and prayer is inappropriate. 
The result may come by a wise use of a 
natural law, which God shall secure in 
answer to the prayer. He may act di- 
rectly on vital forces ; or he may so 
influence the minds of friends as to draw 
attention to the proper remedy or to the 
most skilful physician or to the most 
faithful nurse. Shall we de.ny so credi- 



i6o SPIRIT J AL VICTORY. 

ble a fact, because we do not know 
precisely how God may influence human 
thought? That were to elevate igno- 
rance into a demonstration. Reason and 
faith agree that the Creator may em- 
ploy his own laws in answer to the 
prayers of his children. He is not less 
able, in this respect, than an earthly 
parent, but infinitely more able. We 
may thus see that no argument from 
Scripture is needed against Prof. Tyn- 
dall's view. Philosophy, science, and 
common sense are sufficient to refute 
him. He can neither wrest from faith 
its chief weapon, nor blunt either of its 
edges. 

" Then, my soul, in every strait 
To thy Father come, and wait ; 
He will answer every prayer; 
God is present everywhere." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE WEAPON TESTED. 

"pROF. TYNDALL, in his second 
communication to the " Contempo- 
rary Review " on prayer, admitted the 
idea of prayer to God, as our heavenly 
Father, to be an excellent theory, could 
it only be proved to be true, as one veri- 
fies a theory of light or of heat, by 
experiments addressed to the outward 
senses. He complained that Christian 
people object to all physical tests of 
prayer, such as the famous proposition 
to test its power in a particular ward 
of a hospital ; and yet he knew no other 
method of settling the dispute. Indeed, 
he thought that the physical test settles 
II i6i 



l62 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

it against the Christian. Let us reflect 
a little upon this idea of verifying prayer. 
If prayer be a real power, as a petition 
to God for the production of desired 
effects in the spiritual and in the physi- 
cal world, then the fact must be capable 
of verification. It would be unwise to 
recommend and even to enjoin its use as 
a weapon in our spiritual warfare, were 
there no way in which to test its edge 
and temper. The promises and invita- 
tions of Scripture imply that there is a 
way. God invites us to pray, and pledges 
an appropriate answer. But it does 
not follow that the process of verifica- 
tion is in all respects the same as in the 
case of a mere physical law. The prin- 
ciple, however, will be the same ; which 
is, that when the prescribed conditions 
are fulfilled the promised effect will be 



THE WEAPON TESTED. 163 

produced. Thus gunpowder will not 
explode unless it be dry. Not a few of 
Prof. Tyndall's admirable experiments in 
illustration of physical law would fail, if 
one or two seemingly slight conditions 
were neglected by himself or his assist- 
ant. So it is in prayer ; only the con- 
ditions are moral. God promises to 
hear the prayer of the humble, penitent, 
obedient, believing, importunate, per- 
severing, yet submissive soul, which asks 
for a true good, according to the divine 
mind. If the conditions are not ful- 
filled (and it is largely to secure their 
presence that prayer is prescribed), the 
answer must not be expected. But these 
conditions are not visible to the eye, are 
not to be detected by any outward 
sense, and only God perfectly knows 
whether they are complied with. How 



1 64 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

is it possible, then, to test prayer in a 
mere outward mechanical way, by set- 
ting people to praying for a specific out- 
ward result without reference to the 
spiritual relations of the matter, which 
are vital to the process ? Water-power 
or steam-power can be turned on ma- 
chinery at will, merely by moving a 
lever that connects or disconnects the 
power ; but prayer-power cannot be so 
ordered, in the very nature of the case. 
Who shall previously guarantee that the 
object sought is, in the divine view, the 
best to be granted ? Who shall certify 
those who witness the so-called experi- 
ment, that those who pray ask in a peni- 
tent and obedient state of mind, or with 
fervor and importunity, or with mingled 
faith and submission? Yet the law of 
prayer is suspended on these conditions 



THE WEAPON TESTED, 165 

of moral force as really as Prof. Tyndall 
knows the manifestations of heat to be 
on some exertion of physical force. 
Why, then, should he ask that the moral 
question of answers to prayer be treated 
as a mere physical problem ? 

And here it should be noted, that as 
prayer is an exercise within the spiritual 
realm, having its reasons in moral ends, 
though often producing effects in the 
physical world, and as it demands pecu- 
liar spiritual conditions, so it will never 
afford evidence of its reality by a demon- 
stration which shall compel belief in 
an unsympathetic and sceptical mind. 
Nothing is mathematically demonstrated 
in religion ; and, in truth, very little is so 
demonstrated in science. High proba- 
bility, amounting to a reasonable cer- 
tainty, on w^hich one may confidently 



i66 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

act, is all that either religion or physical 
science logically offers. What are called 
universal physical laws are accepted from 
faith in the uniformity of natural causes, 
and are probable inferences from ob- 
served phenomena, scarcely one of which 
might not suddenly fail : that is, no one 
absolutely knows that an exceptional 
phenomenon may not be discovered to- 
morrow ; as the seemingly universal law 
that bodies expand with heat and con- 
tract with cold, finds an exception in 
water, which obeys the law till the freez- 
ing-point is reached, and then reverses it. 
Still more must religion have its laws 
accepted from faith in the uniform oper- 
ation of God as an intelligent being at 
the head of a moral government ; who 
will always act on the same principles 
of rigliteous7\ess and benevolence, and 



THE WEAPON TESTED, 167 

who will necessarily subordinate the 
lower physical realm to the higher spirit- 
ual realm. But nothing in the spiritual 
realm evidences itself to a gross, ma- 
terialistic, sceptical mind. Not even 
God himself appears to be a reality ; and 
the atheistic philosopher complains that 
he can obtain no tangible evidence that 
God exists and acts. He uses TyndalFs 
very argument, saying, that the idea of 
God is a very pretty theory, in itself not 
without attraction and a certain analogy 
with human experiences ; but unfortu- 
nately it is not capable of being verified 
in the physical world. Nobody produces 
God to him ; nobody shows him pheno- 
mena which he can attribute to no other 
than a directly divine origin. How, then, 
is the reality of prayer to verify itself to 
such a state of mind ? Let the subse- 



1 68 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

quent phenomena be what they might, 
they would be explained away on some 
other supposition, as were the miracles 
of Jesus by the unbelieving Jews, who 
witnessed them. And Jesus truly said 
of the unsympathetic, sceptical class, 
" Neither would they believe though one 
rose from the dead." It is no part of 
religion to compel belief: its aim is to 
mould character, and therefore it simply 
invites belief on evidence credible to a 
candid mind. Those who have faith in 
God as at the head of a moral govern- 
ment over dependent yet responsible 
creatures, will have faith in prayer. The 
same kind of evidence establishes both 
facts. 

Furthermore, it is worthy of Mr. Tyn- 
dalFs reflection that those who have 
made the largest trial of prayer are the 



THE WEAPON TESTED. 169 

best satisfied of its power. They have 
made the only experiments that the nature 
of the case allows, — experiments not of 
mere scientific curiosity, or as a method of 
placating opposition or silencing scep- 
tics, by which God shall submit himself 
to infidel testings ; but experiments of 
personal petition for objects providen- 
tially pressed upon them, and in compli- 
ance with the spiritual conditions requi- 
site. The church has always been a 
praying church ; its prayers have extended 
to all manner of objects ; and its ex- 
perience has so confirmed its faith, that 
never did it pray more frequently or 
more fervently than to-day. This is very 
singular, if prayer is a failure as to the 
production of desired results. The Bible 
gives us, in its historical portions, numer- 
ous instances of prayer for specific events 



170 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

to take place, both in the physical and 
in the spiritual realm of things ; and 
those events occurred. It may be easy 
for. Prof. Tyndall to deny the fact (which 
does not at all disprove it), or to call the 
result in each case a mere coincidence. 
But these coincidences have been so 
many and so marked, in every genera- 
tion, and in the case of every prayerful 
individual, that faith has found abun- 
dant evidence on which to live, and it is 
of no use for men who do not pray to 
seek to invalidate it. Those who make 
honest trial find success. 

We may refer Prof. Tyndall to the 
recorded facts in connection with the 
means obtained by Francke through 
prayer, in special emergencies, to build 
the orphan house at Halle, and to the 
experience of George Miiller at Bristol, 



THE WEAPON TESTED, 171 

in his own land. Or, as he especially 
desires to test prayer in connection with 
healing disease, we would ask him to 
read a little book called "Dorothea Tru- 
del, or The Prayer of Faith," published in 
London, and republished also in this 
country ; in which he will learn of facts 
which stood the test of a legal trial be- 
fore an unsympathetic court in Zurich, 
Switzerland, which were confessed to be 
true by intelligent physicians, and which 
gained the credence, after careful exam- 
ination, of such theologians as Tholuck 
and Bishop Kapff. We do not claim that 
it is possible to show the relation of pray- 
er to the effect in a way of visible de- 
monstration, as though it were a mechan- 
ical force to be illustrated by machinery, 
for such is not its nature ; but we do 
claim that experience proves prayer to be 



172 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

precisely what it is described as being 
in the Holy Scriptures ; that it is effec- 
tive for the purposes, in the ways, and on 
the conditions there set forth. 

'* The Saviour bids thee watch and pray, 
Maintain a warrior's strife ; 
O Christian ! hear his voice to-day : 
Obedience is thy life." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

VICTORY THROUGH SELF-DENIAL. 

/^NE cannot read the New Testament 
without being struck with the prom- 
inent place which it gives to self-denial. 
The words of Jesus might be taken as 
the motto for a Christian life, "If any 
man will come after me, let him deny 
himself, and take up his cross, and follow 
me." No conception of leligion can be 
true in which self-indulgence is the law 
of life, or in which self-denial is nearly or 
quite ignored. There can be no victory 
in this lifelong war, unless we give heed 
to the apostle, " Thou therefore endure 
hardness as a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ. No man that warreth entan- 

173 



174 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

gleth himself with the affairs of life ; 
that he may please him who hath chosen 
him to be a soldier." 

Yet one will gain no genuine advan- 
tage from merely repeating the word " self- 
denial," as though there were some spirit- 
ual charm in it, or in cherishing a narrow 
conception of what the virtue means and 
implies. Suppose we look the matter 
squarely in the face. 

Self-denial is used,' and not altogether 
improperly, in various related but yet 
distinct senses. In its most comprehen- 
sive sense it includes all Christian char- 
acter, as based on the principle of self- 
renunciation. As selfishness, or supreme 
self-love, is the essence of sin ; so self- 
denial, or the putting self down to its 
proper position, in subordination to God's 
glory and the common welfare, is the 



SELF-DENIAL, 175 

reversing and opposing principle of piety. 
This is the principal idea in the words 
of Jesus quoted above, — that one cannot 
be his disciple without denying that rul- 
ing self-love which has previously consti- 
tuted the aim of life, and substituting 
for it the love of God and the neigh- 
bor. 

From this general principle result 
specific acts in which, out of love to 
Christ, a disciple denies himself a grati- 
fication which appeals to natural desire 
in a way of sin. He will not seek pleas- 
ure by evil methods, among vile asso- 
ciates, by dangerous courses, or at im- 
proper times. The pleasure itself would 
often be strongly attractive, were it sep- 
arated from sin in its circumstances ; but 
he denies himself gratification in that di- 
rection, not being willing to do wrong and 



176 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

to grieve his Saviour. But, more than 
this: the disciple who is imbued with 
the spirit of the Master will also often 
deny himself innocent gratifications, 
when by so doing he can better pro- 
mote the cause of Christ, and the good 
of his fellow-men. Christ's own life 
was, in this sense, a continuous act of 
self-denial. He submitted to the hu- 
miliation of an earthly career and a 
human experience ; he made hourly sac- 
rifice of personal ease and comfort, to 
benefit the bodies and souls of men; 
and he exposed himself to the bitter as- 
saults and finally to the murderous at- 
tack of those who hated the truth which 
he proclaimed, and the purity which he 
exemplified. Well did Paul set forth 
this duty of love, when, affirming that 
we " ought not to please ourselves," he 



SELF-DENIAL. 177 

added, " Let every one of us please his 
neighbor for his good unto edification ; 
for even Christ pleased not himself," etc. 
In other words, the spirit of love is self- 
sacrificing: it will joyfully yield a per- 
sonal gratification to benefit or please 
the loved object. Life is full of this 
self-denial in natural directions ; as in the 
toils and sufferings which parents under- 
go for children, and children too, often- 
times, for parents. Religion leads us to 
act similarly for the good of any one 
who is in need of our help. Thus our 
lives may be daily and almost hourly 
occupied with greater and smaller sacri- 
fices of innocent personal pleasure, 
made in behalf of others. Loving sac- 
rifice is a Christly law, which we pre- 
scribe to ourselves. This law it is always 
healthful to expound and illustrate. 



178 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

We must recommend it to others, and 
must live it out ourselves. If God is 
love, if Christ was love, if love is the 
fulfilling of the law, then self-denial is 
an inevitable accompaniment of a holy 
life. 

But to believe this, and to act contin- 
ually upon it, is in no wise inconsistent 
with our taking a great deal of pleasure 
in life, both in work and play, in society 
and in amusement. For a little reflec- 
tion shows that the highest good of all 
concerned is best promoted by this very 
course, and that asceticism, on a large 
or on a small scale, is no proper form 
of self-denial. It is a mistaken and 
often an injurious practice, conveying 
wrong ideas of a religious life, and not 
seldom resulting in a narrow, self-right- 
eous censoriousness in those who con- 



SELF-^DENIAL. 179 

form to it, and in a confirmed dislike of 
piety on the part of those whom they 
drive into antagonism. Much better is 
it to partake of all innocent delight in 
life, thereby helping the happiness of 
those with whom we associate, and pre- 
serving a natural character to piety, 
while yet we count no gratification too 
dear to be set aside at any moment, in 
order to promote a greater good. Many 
a Christian father would have more of 
the spirit of true love, and would have 
more religious influence over his chil- 
dren, if he would often (self-denyingly, 
if necessary) unbend from serious stud- 
ies and grave labors, and join merrily in 
their diversions. Some would call this 
a pleasure ; but if to others it is a self- 
denial, then let them practise that 
virtue. And so of other social gratifi- 



l8o SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

cations which make life more pleasant 
and none the less holy. 

But it is a sad fact that Christian 
teachers sometimes harp upon self-de- 
nial as if it were a something separate 
from the spontaneous sacrifice of a lov- 
ing spirit, to be every hour manifested 
in a hundred little thoughtful ways of 
mutual helpfulness, and to be occasion- 
ally exemplified more severely upon 
providential occasions. They talk and 
write as if it were the doing of a certain 
class of unpleasant acts, or the refusing 
to enjoy certain specified pleasures; as 
if, in the sight of our loving Father, 
there were any merit in an unnecessary 
deprivation, — an idea born of ancient 
Phariseeismx, and adopted and put to 
large service by modern Romanism. 
The truth is, we are apt to run in ruts of 



SELF-DENIAL. i8l 

our own, made for the wheels o, thought 
by our temperament, education, and pe- 
culiar experience. And so we have pet 
self-denials, to which we would fain 
make fellow-saints conform. When we 
speak of the virtue of self-denial v/e have 
our eye upon particular methods ; which, 
indeed, may be those to which we are 
called, but which we are not therefore 
warranted in imposing on others, char- 
ging our brethren with not practising 
self-denial, if, perchance, they do not 
accept them at our hands. God may 
see that, in other ways, equally appro- 
priate to their circumstances, they are 
gladly making many and great sacrifices 
for his loved cause. No man in the 
Christian realm has a patent of self- 
denial, that others should be compelled 
to come to him to find the best method. 



i82 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

A heart full of love will need little 
prompting in this direction, and will 
fall back on no stereotyped rules for or- 
dering the details of life, so as to mani- 
fest the spirit of self-sacrifice. As tears 
of joy and of sorrow come from the 
same fountain, so it often happens that 
the same good man runs over with hu- 
mor and with tender sympathy; is the 
life of a feast, and the chief comforter in 
the house of mourning ; enters into inno- 
cent pleasures with peculiar zest, and 
sacrifices them without a struggle when 
thereby he can do good to the bodies or 
souls of others. There is meaning, in 
this respect as well as in others, in the 
familiar lines, — 

'* If on our daily course our mind 
Be set, to hallow all we 'find, 
New treasures still, of countless price,. 
God will provide for sacrifice. 



i 



SELF-DENIAL. 183 

The trivial round, the common task, 
Will furnish all we ought to ask, — 
Room to deny ourselves ; a road 
To bnng us daily nearer God.*' 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

VICTORY THROUGH SORROW. 

'nr^HAT a holy life should be joyous, 
is what reason would expect, and is 
what religion affirms. For does it not 
imply the testimony of a good con- 
science, which is itself positive bliss ? Is 
it not also a restful faith in God, which 
is the essence of peace? Does it not, 
as being love, carry with it a benevolent 
gratification in all the happiness and 
the holiness of others ? And must it 
not involve a sense of Divine approba- 
tion and favor, which is the summit of 
joy? 

But how as to its external experience? 

Will all outward circumstances be so 

1S4 



VICTORY THROUGH SORROW, 185 

arranged by divine Providence as to 
conduce to immediate pleasure ? This 
might, at first, be supposed to be so ; 
for the conformity of the outward to the 
inward is a natural idea. The body is 
the expression and complement of the 
soul. The material universe is in won- 
drous analogy, throughout, with the in- 
tellectual and moral. Holiness, more- 
over, has the promise of bliss in all 
forms, as a fitting reward. God, too, as 
a benevolent being, must delight in be- 
stowing gifts. How, then, could it be 
possible, it might be asked, for God to 
order it otherwise than that holiness 
should invariably be associated with 
blissful external experiences ? 

Facts show that this is not the case ; 
and sound reason joins with inspired 
Scripture to tell us why. Strong, pure, 



l86 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

incorruptible character could not thus 
be formed. Character must be a growth 
from small beginnings, and in the face 
of temptation. The soul must be put 
on trial ; and that necessitates an arrange- 
ment which shall make holiness cost 
somewhat. All probation involves this 
element, — a temporary and partial sac- 
rifice of personal happiness, in order to 
sustain the law which honors God and 
protects the universal good. Some form 
of gratification must be foregone, to 
abide the test which God has appointed. 
One's own ease or pleasure must, to 
some extent, be laid aside, in order 
to preserve or aid or rescue others. 
Self-denial becomes thus a leading 
virtue, in a state of probation. Native 
instincts are restrained within pre- 
scribed bounds^ as a proof of obedience ; 



VICTORY ThROUGH SORROW, 187 

or are denied as a means of promoting 
the happiness of others, and thus as a 
fulfilment of the golden law of love. 
Doubtless some such self-denying test 
was set before the angels in their pro- 
bationary condition ; and Satan refused 
compliance, and was followed in his evil 
example by a multitude of his associates. 
Adam and Eve came under the same 
probationary law; and, tempted by a 
natural desire to eat of inviting fruit and 
to gain attractive knowledge, — a gratifi- 
cation which they were unwilling to fore- 
go to please God, — they violated the 
divine command, and fell from holy 
character. 

If this restriction on pleasure is need- 
ful prior to a fall, how much more must 
it hold true in a redemptive scheme, 
which aims to restore sinners to holiness ! 



i88 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

They have become selfish ; and the 
object is, to render them benevolent, — to 
induce in them a character of love 
which shall set the welfare of others 
above personal gratification, and shall 
be true to God at the cost of self-denial. 
They have become unbelieving ; and the 
object is, to renew in them a firm faith 
in God, such as shall trust him in despite 
of the most unfavorable appearances, 
and even in the face of personal suffer- 
ing. 

Thus it is that men find the world to 
be full of sorrow, it being also full of 
sin. The way out of the sin is usually 
through the sorrow ; as multitudes have 
found to their subsequent exceeding joy. 
The Israelites fought hard to gain the 
land of Canaan in exchange for their 
desert-life. The way to rest led not 



VICTORY THROUGH SORROW, 189 

only through the Jordan, but through 
many a bloody battle. Victory comes 
to all as the consequence and reward of 
suffering. This is not because God de- 
lights in the sorrow, as though it were a 
good in itself ; but because he is wise 
enough to see its value and necessity as 
a means, and is sufficiently firm and in- 
telligent in his benevolence, to use it 
for the ultimate good of men. 

Take those whose unbelief fails to 
recognize God in daily providence, or to 
have regard to his government, and 
whose selfishness perverts his continual 
bounty into occasion of deeper sin ; and 
how shall there begin to be made on 
them an impression of the reality of 
God's being and agency, and of his holy 
character, save by some interruption of 
their pleasures? God must needs awe 



1 90 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

and startle them into a reception of the 
primary truths of religion. In this way 
many a man has lost his fortune, and 
saved his soul ; has seen his vessel go 
upon the rocks, but has escaped spiritual 
shipwreck; has stood aghast while his 
idols were shattered in pieces, but has 
received God afterward as his eternal 
portion. Some states of atmosphere 
can only be purified by raging storms, 
which, in their destructiveness, threaten 
to bring back chaos again. In such a 
case love sends the storm, and even 
smiles amid the desolation. 

Nor can the triumph of good over 
evil in the redeemed soul after conver- 
sion proceed to perfection, without the 
steady discipline of sorrow. Hence we 
notice that some of the best men on 
earth have been the most afflicted also. 



VICTORY THROUGH SORROW, 191 

It was Job, "perfect and upright," a man 
"that feared God, and eschewed evil," 
whose misfortunes became proverbial. 
All history resounds with the plaints of 
sufferers who could not understand why 
they should be crushed to the earth with 
trouble, while the wicked rioted in pros- 
perity. The Psalmist explained, that, in 
his own case, his sorrows were ap- 
pointed with divine faithfulness, not as 
destroying judgments, but as means of 
grace, to release him from sin : " Before 
I was afflicted I went astray ; but now 
have I kept Thy word." And what 
saint has not had a similar experience ? 
Therefore the New Testament assures us 
that God " scourgeth every son whom he 
receiveth," and that to be without chas- 
tisement is to be a bastard. 

It is no small mistake, then, to think 



192 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

that trouble and misfortune operate only 
adversely; that they simply discourage 
and depress men ; that they fill the mind 
with undue anxiety, and make it grovel 
amid earthly and sensual thoughts ; that 
they harden and imbitter the soul 
against both God and man. Such an 
effect does, indeed, often ensue ; but it is 
due not to the trouble, but to absence of 
faith in God. Woe, indeed, to the man 
who fails to cling to God in the time of 
his trial ! He may go insane in the 
hour of his sudden calamity, as did not 
a few rich men from the effect of the 
Chicago fire ; but as did not Job, in his 
far sorer misfortunes, who could say, 
" Though He slay me, yet will I trust in 
him." When faith is present, a moral 
victory is won over the fierce and Satan- 
ic temptation to distrust and despair. 



VICTORY THROUGH SORROW, 193 

Patience and fonitude bear up under 
the present pain, while hope of future 
and everlasting good creates a smile 
upon the very face of sorrow. Yea, 
sometimes such is the spiritual victory, 
that the soul, amid the sorest pressure 
of earthly trial, cries aloud in holy ex- 
ultation, "These light afflictions, which 
are but for a moment, work for us a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory." Thus comes true the inspired 
word, "No chastening for the present 
seemeth to be joyous, but grievous : 
nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the 
peaceable fruit of righteousness unto 
them who are exercised thereby." 

We do well, then, to feel that there is 

something sacred in sorrow ; that, though 

God's goodness prompts him to bestow 

gifts immediately pleasant in their re- 

13 



194 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

ception, yet he is never more near to 
the soul, or more tender of it, than when 
it is in deepest waters of affliction. It 
is said that fruits ripen in the sunshine ; 
and yet half of each twenty-four hours 
God puts the vegetable world into 
darkness, to say nothing of the clouds 
and storms which so often intercept 
the rays of the sun during the day. 
Character ripens under afflictions as well 
as under enjoyments. Sorrow refines 
the selfishness and the earthliness out 
of the soul, cools the fever of its sinful 
ambition, turns its face upward and 
Godward, teaches it to lead a life of 
faith, and brings it off victor in the dead- 
ly conflict. 

''Blest is the hope that holds to God 
In doubt and darkness still unshaken, 
And sings along the heavenly road, 
Sweetest, when most it seems forsaken.'* 



CHAPTER XIX. 

VICTORY THROUGH JOY. 

T^ATURE and grace alike testify that 
there is strength in joy. It is no 
uncommon matter of observation, that a 
sorrowful man is a dispirited man. 
Melancholy breeds despair. Tears in 
the eyes blind the sight. Even when 
sanctified affliction imparts new power 
to the soul, as unquestionably it does, so 
that there is a victory through sorrow, 
it is by an exercise of faith which sup- 
plants the natural grief by a joy and 
peace in God, — a truth recognized by 
the words of Scripture concerning 
" chastening," that " afterward it worketh 
the peaceable fruit of righteousness." 

195 



196 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

Soldiers fight best when well fed and 
well sheltered, and when confidence in 
their cause, in their officeis, in their 
numbers, and in their discipline gives a 
joyful assurance of success. 

That was a noteworthy remark of 
Nehemiah, when he bade the people go 
to their homes for feasting instead of 
weeping, saying, " Neither be ye sorry ; 
for the joy of the Lord is your strength." 
So, when the Psalmist has described the 
people of God as full of gladness, and 
as constantly engaged in praise, he 
adds, "They go from strength to 
strength. '^ And does not Paul intimate 
a similar connection of experiences, 
when he writes to the Corinthians, " We 
are helpers of your joy, for by faith ye 
stand ; " and when he prayed for the 
Colossians, that they " might be strength- 



VICTORY THROUGH JOY, 197 

ened with all might, according to his 
glorious power, unto all patience and 
long-suffering with joyfulness"? 

A mere natural joy, such as flows 
from the possession of natural good, 
— health, friends, riches, food, society, — 
may be, indeed, a temptation and an 
occasion of defeat rather than of victory. 
The soul may rest in such good as its 
portion, and may thus separate from 
God. It was not enough to preserve 
our first parents in holiness, that they 
dwelt in Paradise, where all their sur- 
roundings were pleasant. They did not 
lack a supply for a single want, nor had 
they the least anxiety for the future. 
They had had no bitter experiences, and 
nothing had occurred to associate piety 
with gloom. Yet, amid all manner of 
natural joys, they lost their faith in God, 



198 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

under a false suggestion of the tempter, 
and not even gratitude, — that easiest of 
virtues, — held them to their allegiance. 
If this were so with unfallen natures, 
much more must there be danger that 
men in their depravity will forget God, 
in the midst of outward prosperity. It 
was written of Jeshurun, that he "waxed 
fat and kicked.'' The rich man, of 
whom Jesus spake in the parable, was 
" clothed in purple and fine linen, and 
fared sumptuously every day ; " but that 
fact produced no tendency to piety in 
heart or life. Similarly, " the rich fool," 
of another parable, was only led by his 
increase of goods to say to his soul, 
" Eat, drink, and be merry.'' The rich 
are far from being the pious class of 
society ; natural as it would seem for 
abounding blessings to produce abound- 



VICTORY THROUGH JOY, 199 

ing thanks. Indeed, our Saviour reproved 
and warned them as he never did the 
poor, and declared that it was with 
difficulty that any of them could be 
saved ! 

Yet there is a triumph of grace on the 
joyful side of human experience. Al- 
though God ordinarily needs to afflict 
us much, as we pass through the world, 
in order that we may be weaned from 
mere natural good, may take refuge in 
him alone, and may be trained in self- 
denial, yet one of the evidences of 
sanctification is, the ability to rejoice in 
all the pleasant things of this life with- 
out being ensnared by them. If grace 
did not often accomplish this result, it 
would appear deficient in power, and 
not suitably related to the necessities of 
human life. Piety would be associated 



200 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

with gloom, and poverty would be the 
only and the narrow sphere of religion. 
But the saints also illustrate godliness 
amid prosperous scenes. Nicodemus 
and Joseph of Arimathea appear among 
the believers in Jesus, as well as the 
poor fishermen of Galilee. And surely 
it must be a delight to God to find a 
sanctified soul whom it is safe to bless 
with a large degree of earthly good ; for 
giving rather than withholding is his 
habitual act, as love is his very nature. 
Towards this condition He must be train- 
ing all his people. For what is our con- 
ception of heaven but of a place and 
state in which God eternally links 
together purity and joy, because each is 
there promotive of the other? In pro- 
portion, then, as one ripens for heaven, 
will he not come into the state in which 



VICTORY THROUGH JOY, 20i 

he will be able to enjoy all manner of 
good, and to be united only the more 
closely to God by his pleasant surround- 
ings ? What a victory that is over man's 
selfish and godless character, which 
naturally uses earthly enjoyment as a 
substitute for God, loving the gift but 
not the Giver I 

And surely, among the triumphs of 
grace in this world, is yet to be a pre- 
vailing piety which shall make all the 
benefits of civilization tributary to itself ; 
so that the Christianized multitudes shall 
not dwell in the hovels of poverty, but 
shall joyfully shout, "The lines are 
fallen unto us in pleasant places, and 
we have a goodly heritage ! " It is a 
foretokening of this result, when we see 
individual Christians blessed with worldly 
comfort, yet not made thereby worldly in 



202 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

spirit, but rather refined and elevated 
in character, and filled with holy grati- 
tude and love. There are those, — few, 
as yet, it must be confessed, — to whom 
all outward joys are wings that bear 
them Godward. As wealth increases, 
their liberality keeps equal pace, and 
they find the more occasion for honoring 
God and for blessing their fellow-men. 
Such is their spirit of consecration, that 
they never separate between God and 
providential mercies, but enjoy^ both 
together. The more they have, the 
more they love. The more they enjoy, 
the closer God seems to be to them. 
That which to others is a fatal tempta 
tion is to them a means of grace. 
What is such an experience but a fore- 
taste of heaven, and a restoration of the 
soul and its surroundings to their truly 



VICTORY THROUGH JOY. 203 

natural condition? Thus a beginning 
is made of that state in which "God 
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, 
and there shall be no more death, neither 
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there 
be any more pain ; " in which, as God 
multiplies his blessings, the grateful and 
joyous soul triumphs more and more, 
in the increase of knowledge and power, 
and in the ecstacy of love. 

" Rejoice in God alway ; 

When earth looks heavenly bright, 
When joy makes glad the Uvelong day, 
And peace shuts in the night." 



CHAPTER XX. 

VICTORY AT THE OUTPOSTS. 

T^TOT a small part of spiritual, as of 
military success, depends on the 
care taken of the outposts. These may 
easily be undervalued. They have none of 
the magnificence of a grand camp about 
them. Each is occupied by a few sol- 
diers at most, and often by only a single 
sentinel. It may seem to be a very 
trifling business, to do nothing but to 
watch, and to send an occasional report 
to headquarters. The glory of war is 
associated with the thunder of great 
guns, the sharp rattle of musketry, the 
ringing sound of the trumpet, the draw- 
ing-up in battle-array of armies, the 
204 



VICTORS AT THE OUTPOSTS. 205 

waving of banners, the rush of cavalry, 
the deadly assault, the smoke of con- 
flict, the huzza of victory. How unlike 
all this is the still life, the solitary em- 
ployment, at a distant outpost ! There 
is no romance in mere vigilance. Pas- 
sion is stirred by attack. One feels that 
he is part of a host, and himself an 
element of power, when marching in the 
ranks of the main army, or abiding in 
the tented field ; but there is little to 
stir enthusiasm in being sent away into 
the woods, or to distant hills, to watch 
for what may never appear, to guard 
what may never be attacked. As 
though the enemy would trouble himself 
about insignificant outposts, when there 
is a central camp to be assaulted ! 

Yet who does not know that danger 
begins at the outposts ? These must be 



2g6 spiritual victory, 

passed before the camp can be reached ; 
and, if the enemy meditates a surprise, 
nothing can prevent it but the vigilance 
of the distant sentinels. They have 
the honor and responsibility of being 
nearest the foe. Many an army has 
been lost by the neglect of the com- 
mander to take sufficient precautions 
against a sudden night attack. Many a 
castle and city has been captured 
through the absence of even a single 
sentinel from his beat. The rules of 
war are severe on this point. It will not 
do to allow one man to endanger an 
army ; and so death has often been the 
fate of a guard found asleep on his post. 
These facts have their counterpart in 
the spiritual conflict. There are out- 
posts of the soul, where danger usually 
begins, where the enemy first shows him- 



VICTORY AT THE OUTPOSTS. 207 

self, and where consequently vigilance 
must be perpetual. Here comes an ap- 
plication of the old Latin maxim : Obsta 
principiis : " Resist the beginnings of 
evil." Do not let the enemy effect a 
lodgement any where. Allow him not to 
pass the outposts. Be prepared for 
the small temptations. Watch the 
doubtful points. Investigate the suspi- 
cious movements. Remember that the 
foe comes often in disguise j that Satan 
appears as "an angel of light;" that 
sin calls itself pleasure, and never pro- 
claims its own guilt. " Watch and pray " 
is the order issued from headquarters. 
A step at a time is all that our adversary 
cares to be allowed to take \ and usually 
he can take all he desires, one after 
another, if he is allowed the first. 

The chief outposts are the senses. 



2o8 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

Bunyan, in his allegory of " Mansoul/' 
well called them the gates of the city, 
and described what was done at Ear- 
gate, Eye-gate, &c. But how few think 
it important to guard the senses lest 
they be the inlets of temptation ! So 
far, indeed, are many from guarding 
them, that they throw the gates wide 
open, that there may enter what will ! 
Curiosity is so powerful in some minds, 
and the love of novelty and excitement 
in others, that they place no restraint on 
eye or ear or mouth or nostril or hand. 
They determine to know all that is going 
on, to see whatever is to be seen, to 
hear whatever is to be heard. That this 
takes them needlessly into the midst of 
temptation, to places which they should 
shun as dangerous, to sights which pol- 
lute the mind, to sounds which enervate 



i 



I 



VICTORY AT THE OUTPOSTS, 209 

the soul, to company which solicits to 
evil, they do not seem to weigh. And 
yet the history of sin at every point sug- 
gests a caution in this very respect, show- 
ing how even the strongest have fallen by 
allowing the enemy to capture this out- 
post of the senses. Let us notice a few 
facts. 

How did Satan begin his first cam- 
paign on earth ? He appealed to the 
outward senses : he drew Eve's attention 
to the beauty of the forbidden fruit, and 
to its attractiveness to the palate, thus 
enlisting the powerful appeal of the 
senses on his side. Her only course of 
safety was to leave the spot ; to refuse 
longer to look at the tempting fruit. 
But this she did not: she allowed a 
strong desire to be aroused, which aided 
the lying declarations of the tempter, 



2IO SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

and the result was that she yielded. 
" She saw that the tree was good for food, 
and that it was pleasant to the eyes." 
And how came David's sad fall about ? 
Simply by not guarding this same out- 
post of the eyes. He looked in a wrong 
direction, on an object of powerful temp- 
tation ; he kept on looking, till his ani- 
mal nature was inflamed, and a flood of 
passion carried his will along as mere 
driftwood. The world is not even yet 
through with the sad results of that neg- 
lect to watch one of the outward 
senses. Yet many who claim to be 
Christians will indulge that same sense 
nn a not dissimilar way, in the ball-room, 
at the theatre, at the opera, and in other 
places where female charms are meretri- 
ciously displayed ! Parents will some- 
times allow their children to go and 



VICTORY AT TH£ OUTPOSTS, 211 

"look on," amid scenes in which they 
would not allow them actively to partici- 
pate. What effect can this have but to 
inflame desire through the eye and ear, 
and to create in the children a taste for 
dissipating pleasures ? 

How forcible, in this view, is the 
declaration of Isaiah, that one of the 
characteristics of the man who "shall 
dwell on high,'' and shall be under spe- 
cial divine protection, is, that he " shut- 
teth his eyes from seeing evil " ! How 
instructive, for a similar reason, is the 
affirmation of Job, that he had " made a 
covenant with his eyes not to look upon 
a maid " in a way likely to prove a 
temptation to his virtue ! How wise the 
direction of Solomon to the young man, 
when in the presence of moral danger \ 
"Let thine eyes look right on, and let 



212 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

thine eyelids look straight before thee " ! 
that is, do not pause to parley with 
temptation ; do not give the temptation 
a chance to rouse your baser passions.^ 
The philosophy of human nature and 
the precepts of religion dictate this same 
course in the whole range of spiritual 
conflict. They expose the folly of leav- 
ing the senses unguarded ; because evil 
presents its solicitations, the memory 
lodges within it vile associations, the 
imagination is polluted, and the way is 
prepared for overt sin. Inaugurate vic- 
tory at the outposts. 

*' I want a godly fear, 

A quick, discerning eye, 
That looks to see where sin is near, 

And sees the tempter fly ; 
A spirit still prepared, 

And armed with jealous care. 
Forever standing on its guard. 

And watching unto prayer.'* 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CONTINUAL VICTORY. 

TT 7HAT the soul needs is not occa- 
^ ^ sional, but perpetual aid. Its 
wants never intermit, its enemies are al- 
ways at hand, its temptations are omni- 
present. The hour arrives not, nay, the 
moment never comes, when it can stand 
alone. Essential weakness is its own 
nature, separate from God. Its safety 
is in a wondrous capacity to be filled, 
inspired, and energized by God. To be 
thus divinely possessed and used is its 
true life and power. But that the life 
and power may be continuous, the di- 
vine indwelling must be perpetual. 

Continual spiritual victory is then con- 

213 



214 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

ditioned on abiding faith in Jesus as 
an ever-present Saviour, who is always 
"with" the universal church, the smallest 
Christian group, and the humblest indi- 
vidual, according to his several promises : 
"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
the end of the world." " Where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them." "If 
a man love me, he will keep my words, 
and my Father will love him, and we 
will come unto him and make our abode 
with him." An occasional Christ, to 
come to our aid now and then in special 
emergencies, would not meet our spiritual 
necessities. It would be a limitation too 
much like that which attended the earthly 
mission of Jesus, "in the days of his 
flesh." When he was in Galilee, he was 
away from Jerusalem When he was 



CONTINUAL VICTORY, 215 

healing the sick, or teaching the multi- 
tudes by the seaside, he could not mirvis- 
ter similarly to human wants in the tem- 
ple. And so he said to his disciples 
that it was " expedient " for him " to go 
away,*' that, by the presence and power 
of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, he 
might be the more fully with them. Thus 
they would have a double conception of 
him : as '^ a great High Priest passed into 
the heavens,'* by reason of whose per- 
petual intercession they could ^^ come 
boldly unto the throne of grace," and 
could "obtain mercy and find grace to 
help in time of need ; " and as " Christ 
in them," a sanctifying presence, pene- 
trating their whole being with the influ- 
ences of the Spirit. 

Now, this is more than theory. This 
is the secret of spiritual victory. Next 



^ 2i6 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

to justifying faith in a crucified Jesus, as 
an initial experience, faith in a living, 
indwelling Christ, always present to im- 
part holy power, and to enable the soul 
to ''' overcome," is the fundamental gos- 
pel idea. No legal struggles, no desper- 
ate resolutions, no intense watchings, no 
agonizing prayers even, will result in 
continuous victory. There must be add- 
ed a peaceful surrender of the soul into 
the hands of a present Christ, to be 
kept j with the full faith that he will save 
it from present spiritual danger and the 
now urgent temptation. Each one must 
realize that his or her personal sins, 
weaknesses, or trials, are perfectly within 
the scope of Christ's immediate grace ; 
that no besetment is too strong for his 
conquering arm, at any moment, in any 
circumstances. No case is so "pecu- 



CONTINUAL VICTORY, 217 

liar," whether from the magnitude or the 
pettiness of the acts involved, from the 
eluding brevity or the chronic nature of 
the trouble, that Christ cannot insure a 
complete victory "just now." Let us 
illustrate our meaning by actual expe- 
rience. 

A letter lies before us, addressed, in 
private correspondence, to a Christian 
lady, in which is this artless account of 
the victory gained by a friend of the 
writer : — 

" Mrs. B. has lived for some years in 
a spirit of entire consecration to God ; 
but having been carried through months 
of trial, bereavement, and sickness, she 
was enabled to drop down, or ' let her- 
self down,' into Jesus so completely, as 
to be able to testify, moment by moment, 
^ Jesus saves me, saves me now.' She 



2i8 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

applied this ' keeping power of Jesus ' 
to each event of life, — to the cares of 
home-life, the mother's duties, &c. Be- 
fore this entrance into a life of rest, she 
had been so tried with servants as to 
feel at times a longing to die ; and her 
little boy, two and a half years of age, 
was also a severe trial to her, as he 
was remarkably wilful. Now one look 
from her eye reduces the proud spirit to 
obedience. Recently she had a severe 
test. A friend said something which 
wounded her deeply. He knew perfectly 
what he was saying, and for an instant 
her spirit rose up against such an out- 
rage. She just lifted her eyes to Jesus, 
and said, — 'Jesus saves me, saves me 
now ' ! Such a flood of joy filled her 
whole being, that she had to go quickly 
out of tJie room, to be alone with God, 



CONTINUAL VICTORY, 219 

overpowered with a consciousness of the 
Holy Spirit's presence/' 

It is not surprising that the Christian 
pen which wrote this account added, 
" Such experiences are so helpful ! Do 
grasp this mighty truth more fully, and 
present it to those whom you meet. To 

S I gave it, last Saturday, for her 

nerves. She was miserable, and so un- 
equal to keeping herself ! I said, ' When 
you feel irritable, look up and say, Jesus 
saves me now from irritable nerves ! 
This has carried her over two days of 
nervous irritability restfully. Oh, how 
we grieve Jesus by refusing to believe 
his promises, — ' He shall be called Jesus ; 
for he shall save his people from their 
sins.' 'The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth us from all sin ' — as true as 
they are wonderful ! But so few will 
receive the truth in fulness." 



220 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

This truth must be more clearly 
preached from the pulpit, and must be 
made more thoroughly influential in the 
experiences of God's people. A present, 
all-sufficient help is offered ; and this, ac- 
cepted by faith, insures continuous vic- 
tory. " This is the victory that overcometh 
the world, even our faith. Who is he that 
overcometh the world, but he that be- 
lieveth that Jesus is the Son of God ? *' 

" The world and Satan I forsake ; 
To thee I all resign : 
My longing heart, O Jesus ! take, 
And fill with love divine.'^ 



CHAPTER XXII. 

CRISES OF THE CAMPAIGN. 

npHERE is a truth, though one often 
exaggerated and unwisely em- 
ployed, in the representations of the 
"Higher Life" advocates concerning a 
specific experience, to which they give 
the names, " Second Conversion," " Bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost," "Perfect 
Love," and " Christian Perfection." 
Ideally such a state of spiritual victory 
and abiding peace is quite distinct from 
that of legal bondage, moral defeat, and 
continual despondency. One cannot 
pass, even in the most cursory reading, 
from the seventh to the eighth chapters 
of the Epistle to the Romans, without 

221 



222 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

perceiving a marked change. It is like 
ascending from the mists of the valley 
to the clear, bracing atmosphere of the 
mountain-top. Moreover, these two 
states usually are chronologically dis- 
tinct. Ordinarily they are parted by a 
chasm in the consciousness of the Chris- 
tian, over which, at a certain definite 
time, he was borne by the wings of faith. 
He can look back to a date of deliver- 
ance, even as he looks back to the date 
of his original conversion to God. To 
others also, as well as to himself, the 
change then experienced seemed in 
suddenness, thoroughness, and perma- 
nent results, truly to be a second conver- 
sion. Christian biography is full of 
evidence on this point, and the unwritten 
narratives are still more numerous. 
But it is not safe to base on such facts 



CRISES OF THE CAMPAIGN. 223 

a definite theory of a state radically sep- 
arate from that of justification, — a state 
in all cases subsequently entered, and 
by an act or process distinct as that by 
which one passes from the life of an im- 
penitent sinner into that of a Christian. 
The scriptural evidence in its favor is 
far from conclusive : indeed, the favorite 
proof-texts (Eph. i. 13 ; Acts xix. 1-6, 
and other passages) teach no such idea. 
The Bible recognizes two separate classes 
of men on earth: to wit, unconverted 
sinners, and justified Christians in vari- 
ous stages of sanctification. All the 
elements of sanctification are found in 
the justified state. No passage in the 
New Testament warrants the belief that 
any man can be justified who does not 
with his whole heart turn from a life of 
sin, consecrate himself, body and soul, 



224 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

to God, and trust in Christ as his com- 
plete Saviour. This much is involved in 
the very idea of conversion, or of that 
"repentance" and "faith" which are 
made the essential conditions of par- 
don. But no other elements than these 
enter into the advanced stage of Chris- 
tian experience. They are simply de- 
veloped and applied more largely and 
intelligently, so that single acts become 
a divinely inspired life, and intermittent 
exercises grow into an abiding state. 

There are some Christians who glide 
almost imperceptibly into this higher 
life J some who, born into it at conver- 
sion, never need a "second conversion." 
And we are quite sure that this would 
oftener be the case, were the instruc- 
tions given to young converts less legal 
and more evano:elical. What their 



CRISES OF THE CAMPAIGN. 225 

spiritual necessities require is, that they 
should go forward from the first moment 
with as specific a reliance on Christ for 
adequate and continuous sanctifying 
grace, as for the pardon of past sin ; 
involving not only equal desire and 
prayer for the two objects, but equal 
expectation. They should begin with a 
definite, appropriating faith, rather than 
with a resolution based on a vague idea 
of divine aid. The souFs purpose is 
then implied in the faith, with the ad- 
vantage, that consciously and chiefly it is 
a clinging to Christ as an ever-present 
Saviour, whose grace is each moment all- 
sufficient. The converts would thus 
avoid the subsequent declension and 
experience of legal bondage into which 
they usually fall. Consequently they 
would move ever upward, finding each 
15 



226 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

day increasing com age, added joyj 
easier faith, growing power, and more 
intimate fellowship with God. Then 
would be illustrated the declaration: 
" The path of the just is as the shining 
light, that shineth more and more unto 
the perfect day." 

But, because such instruction is so 
seldom or so inadequately given. Chris- 
tians remain in an infantile state. In- 
stead of gaining wings, or even be- 
coming swift of foot in a race, they do 
not learn to walk, or indeed hardly to 
stand. They drop into a life of broken 
resolutions, constantly renewed and as 
constantly violated ; by which they do 
indeed persevere in a religious course, 
but have little spiritual peace, and almost 
no spiritual power. They have not 
learned the secret of victory. This 



CRISES OF THE CAMPAIGN, 227 

gives rise in Christian experience to 
spiritual crises, in which the soul is 
lifted into a higher life, after much dark- 
ness, sore struggling in prayer, deep 
heart-searching, and a very intelligent 
and thorough renewal of consecration 
and acceptance of Christ. It is the spe- 
cial and powerful work of the Spirit, and 
therefore is properly called a " baptism 
of the Holy Ghost." It is a sudden, 
conscious elevation into a practically new 
experience, and, therefore, is ,well 
enough denominated a " second conver- 
sion." It is an enlarged and all-ab- 
sorbing development of the souFs love 
to God and Christ, and, therefore, may 
be termed "perfect love." 

This is not a stereotyped experience, 
which comes with the same incidents in 
all cases. The crisis with one is the 



228 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

result of quiet private meditation and 
prayer, with no theory, or expected 
" state," in mind. With another it is in- 
duced b)'^ revival preaching, and urgent 
specific promptings to reach a given 
experience, which is somewhat techni- 
cally described. In a third case it 
follows the discipline of a sore affiiction, 
which darkens earth, but lets in light 
from heaven. Furthermore, we have 
reason to think, that, in many persons, 
there is a series of three or four crises 
occurring years apart; each caused by 
some providential event which leads to a 
life-review, puts the soul on yet deeper 
self-searching and consecration, and is 
followed by clearer and more blissful 
realizations of God. After the attention 
has been directed to this provision for 
spiritual need, some attain speedily to 



CRISES OF THE CAMPAIGN. 229 

the life of gospel liberty, and others 
slowly ; some also rise to it with facility, 
while others pass through an agonizing 
struggle. But where true consecration 
exists, this difference is probably owing 
to temperament, and to want of clear 
perception of the office and result of 
faith ; since a similar difference is seen 
between ordinary converts in a revival. 

The way of wisdom, in our view, is to 
say little of a technical state, but much 
of a life of faith in Christy which should 
be described as an abiding experience 
of purity, peace, and power, such as 
makes victory characteristic of the soul 
by the supernatural influence of the 
indwelling Spirit. Thus there will be 
found a striking fulfilment of the words 
of the prophet : " He giveth power 
to the faint ; and to them that have no 



230 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

might he increaseth strength. Even 
the youths shall faint and be weary, and 
the young men shall utterly fall ; but 
they that wait upon the Lord shall re- 
new their strength ; they shall mount up 
with wings as eagles; they shall run and 
not be weary, and they shall walk and 
not faint." 

*' Soul, then know thy full salvation ; 

Rise o'er sin and fear and care ; 
Try to find, in every station, 

Something still to do or bear ; 
Think what Spirit dwells within thee ; 

Think what Father's smiles are thine ; 
Think that Jesus died to win thee : 

Child of heaven, canst thou repine ? " 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

LEGAL EXPERIENCE A DEFEAT. 

'TT^HE passage in Rom. vii. 14-25, 
descriptive of a sore spiritual con- 
flict, has long perplexed the interpreters, 
who have discussed, in every possible 
form, the question whether in it the 
apostle means (either from his own 
case, or by a figurative personation of 
the truth), to describe a regenerate or 
an unregenerate experience. When the 
dispute has divided the most eminent 
Greek scholars, the ablest theologians, 
and the most devout saints, and harmony 
of view has not yet been secured, we 
can hardly expect to accomplish much 
by such brief remarks as can here be 

231 



232 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

offered. Yet as the progress of years 
has brought us to a settled view, differ- 
ing from that which we at first held, and 
in which we were educated ; as our con- 
clusion has been maturely tested, not 
only by exegetical study, but by its 
spiritual application in Christian train- 
ing ; and as the matter lies in our mind 
in a somewhat different form from that 
in which ordinarily it is discussed, we may 
be pardoned a few suggestions fitted to 
the comprehension of plain readers of the 
New Testament. 

The interpretation of the passage has 
been embarrassed by the unnecessary as- 
sumption, that it must describe either a 
regenerate or an unregenerate man. 
Hence the one class of interpreters have 
mustered all the possible evidence to 
show that such and such parts of the 



i 



A DEFEAT, 233 

experience naturally belong to a con- 
verted soul ; while the other class have 
labored as minutely and exhaustively to 
show that such and such other parts natu- 
rally characterize an unconverted soul. 
But, in form at least, this appears to us 
to be a false issue. The alternative 
question, as we should state it, is not : Is 
this the habitual experience of a Christian, 
or is it the struggle of an awakened sinner, 
who is not yet converted ? but it is : Is 
this set forth as a distinctively evangelical 
experience, or as one of a legal type, 
in whomsoever it may be found? If 
this is the real point to be decided, then 
both classes of interpreters may be 
partly right and partly wrong ; for the 
passage may describe the experience of 
a converted man, and one which is but 
too common in Christians, and yet the 



234 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

.experience may be purposely set forth 
as defective in the evangelical element, 
as abnormal to a proper Christian state, 
and as exemplifying the operation of 
law rather than of gospel in the work 
of sanctification. And this is our idea 
of it. 

The arguments on both sides have 
been correspondingly inconclusive. They 
have hinged too much on single ex- 
pressions and the contents of the passage 
itself. Those who were determined to 
make out the case of a converted man, 
pointed to the use of " I " and " me," 
and of the verbs in the present tense, — 
" I am," " I do," " I allow not," " I con- 
sent," " I hate," &c. ; as though Paul 
told of his own state of mind at the time 
of writing. They further pointed to 
such strong expressions with reference 



A DEFEAT, 235 

to sin as " what I hate " and " the evil 
which I would not ; " also to such lan- 
guage respecting holiness as, " what I 
would," " I delight in the law of God, 
after the inward man," and " I myself 
serve the law of God." But, on the con- 
trary side, those who insisted on making 
out an unconverted man, had their 
equally strong expressions, which seemed 
only appropriate to one yet unregenerate 
and unpardoned ; such as, " I am carnal, 
sold under sin," "sin that dwelleth in 
me," "how to perform that which is 
good I find not," " the law of sin which 
is in my members," " oh, wretched man 
that I am ! " &c. Now, both parties 
should have remembered, that imperson- 
ations and numerous and strong expres- 
sions in such a passage, especially in 
the case of a glowing writer like Paul, 



236 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

are never to be urged as decisive, apart 
from the general drift of the context. 
In this case they in a measure balance 
and neutralize each other ; and neither 
party is convinced by the favorite cita- 
tions of the other party, because these 
are susceptible of easy explanation, and 
are to be taken more rhetorically than 
logically. But we can claim these very 
facts in favor of our own view ; for the 
two classes of expressions taken together 
would seem to show a state of mind 
which, in respect to conscience, affections, 
and purpose, may have much which is 
truly Christian, while yet the experience 
as a whole, and in result, is sorrowfully 
legal and weak, rather than joyously 
evangelical and strong. The gospel 
offers something better, therefore some- 
thing more victorious and blissful. 



A DEFEAT. 237 

The way is thus cleared to state the 
three considerations which determine 
our judgment to this explanation : — 

I. The drift and necessities of the 
apostle's argument in the epistle require 
such a view. In order to prove the 
need of the gospel salvation, and its 
efficacy, he is compelled to demonstrate 
in the early chapters the universality of 
human sin and ruin, and the impossi- 
bility of justification by the law. Then 
he brings forward Christ's atoning sac- 
rifice, and the offer of a free pardon to 
the penitent believer, and defends the 
scheme from the charge of antinomian- 
ism, or of doing away with the need of 
holiness. All this occupies him nearly 
to the middle of this seventh chapter, 
when there remains the important ques- 
tion, Whether the law, though a failure 



238 SPIRITU/L VICTORY. 

as to justification, may not suffice as a 
sanctifying influence, now that our sins 
are forgiven for Christ's sake ? Is Christ 
as necessary for sanctification as for 
justification ? Does the converted and 
pardoned soul need him in order to a 
victorious life, as truly as does the con- 
victed sinner in order to justification? 
If that be not discussed in this passage, 
and settled emphatically, against the 
law, then Paul's argument is plainly in- 
complete: not only so, but if the expe- 
rience here given be his own state at 
the time, and, as it were, the normal and 
to-be-expected experience of saints in 
this world, he seems to concede a failure 
in the gospel. We cannot so interpret 
him'. 

2. The passage taken as a whole, 
apart from single expressions, necessi- 



A DEFEAT, 239 

tates the same view. After all that can 
be urged from words and phrases indica- 
tive of a regard for holiness and a dislike 
of sin, the emphatic and all-significant 
fact remains, that, from beginning to 
end, there is nothing of result described 
but utter, habitual, characteristic defeat ! 
Not a note of victory is anywhere heard : 
only the wail of despair ! " Sold under 
sin ; " " what I would that I do not, but 
what I hate that do I ; " " how to per- 
form that which is good I find not ; " 
" the good that I would I do not, but 
the evil which I would not that I do ; " 
" I find then a law, that when I would 
do good, evil is present with me ; " "I 
see another law in my members warring 
against the law of my mind, and bringing 
me into captivity to the law of sin which 
is in my members j " " Oh wretched man 



240 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

that I am: who shall deliver me from 
the body of this death ? " Such is not a 
single expression, but the drift of the 
whole passage, and even its exclusive 
declaration, so far as actual results are 
described. The only word of cheer is, 
when he answers the above despairing 
question, in a parenthetical clause, "I 
thank God through Jesus Christ, our 
Lord ; " which he throws in as no part 
of the state which he is describing, but 
by way of anticipation of the deliverance 
which he depicts immediately after, in 
the next chapter, as the result of another 
and far higher experience. This unre- 
lieved aspect of defeat shows that Paul 
writes here of legal failure and not of 
gospel success. 

3. And then this view is corroborated - 
by the purposely contrasted experience. 



A DEFEAT, 241 

the description of which immediately 
follows. The eighth chapter is of en- 
tirely opposite tone. It sings, and fairly 
shouts ! It tells only of victory. It 
cannot possibly mean the same generic 
experience as the one of lamentation 
and defeat which has preceded. Both 
cannot be truly evangelical in character, 
though both may be found in converted 
men. It must be PauFs intent to call 
men out of the first into the second, as 
the genuine gospel state into which he 
himself had entered. For, mark this fact : 
he not only uses the same impersona- 
tion, but the expressions in the eighth 
chapter are specifically chosen to repre- 
sent the contradiction of the state in 
the seventh chapter. Thus in the 
seventh : "I am carnal " (fleshly) and 
" in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no 

16 



242 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

good thing ; " but in the eighth : " Who 
walk not after the flesh, but after the 
Spirit," and " To be carnally-minded is 
death, but to be spiritually minded is 
life and peace." In the seventh : " I 
see another law . . . bringing me into 
captivity to the law of sin which is in 
my members ; " " who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death ? " but in the 
eighth : " The law of the Spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus hath made me free from 
the law of sin and death." In the 
seventh : " Oh wretched man that I 
am ! " but in the eighth, " There is now 
no condemnation to them who are in 
Christ Jesus." This contrast of lan- 
guage hardly allows one to think other- 
wise than that Paul sets forth the legal 
experience in the seventh chapter, and 
the evangelical in the eighth. 



A DEFEAT, 243 

We cannot but feel that there is a 
further corroboration of the above inter- 
pretation in the more inspiring and 
hopeful view which it presents of the 
Christian life. The idea, that the highest 
type of attainment on earth is after all 
described in the seventh chapter, is 
greatly discouraging to the more earnest 
believers, while it acts as an opiate to 
the consciences of the worldly minded. 
This is not the use intentionally made 
of it by the good men who hold such a 
view : they apply it rather to the cultiva- 
tion of humility in some, and the pre- 
vention of too great despondency in 
others, by citing its language as descrip- 
tive of Paul's own spiritual condition. 
Yet practically, and on a large scale, it 
seems to us a restriction on Christian 
hope j and we find great comfort, and a 



244 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

growing sense of power and liberty, in 
the other view. The church sadly needs 
lifting, first out of worldliness, and 
secondly out of legality. Christians 
must learn that sanctification, as well as 
justification, is by faith ; that spiritual 
victory is not by natural law, but by grace, 

*' My God, I cry, with every breath, 
For some kind power to save, 
To break the yoke of sin and death, 
i^nd thus redeem the slave." 



."K 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

VICTORY OVER PRIDE. 

THIS is one of the victories which 
the saint must win, and it is by no 
means the easiest. It has been a favor- 
ite idea with theologians, preachers, and 
poets, that pride is the root-sin ; that by 
it the angels fell, and our first parents 
were led astray in the garden. Nor 
does it require very ingenious and far- 
fetched reasoning, to give color to that 
idea, even if it cannot be philosophically 
established. Selfishness, which is so 
commonly set forth as the generic form 
of sin, of which other sins are the species, 
might be said to involve an overweening 
estimate of one's own importance, and 

245 



246 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

thus to be only another name for pride. 
But, hov/ever that may be, certain it is 
that the word of God abounds in warn- 
ings in this direction. All are familiar 
with such texts as these: "Pride goeth 
before destruction, and a haughty spirit 
before a fall." " Pride and arrogancy 
.... do I hate." " Those that walk in 
pride, he is able to abase." " Out of the 
heart of men proceed evil thoughts, . . . 
. pride, foolishness ; all these evil things 
come from within and defile the man." 
"The pride of life is not of the Father." 
" Not a novice, lest being lifted up with 
pride, he fall into the condemnation of 
the Devil," said Paul, with reference to 
the choice of a pastor. Inculcations of 
humility as the opposing virtue are on 
every page of Scripture. 

Let us gain a cl(^ar idea of the field 



VICTORY OVER PRIDE, 247 

upon which this spiritual battle is to be 
fought, and of the enemy with whom we 
are to contend. There is a sense in 
which pride is used to denote a genuine 
virtue ; as when we " take pride " in 
good qualities, and have such a sense of 
the debasement of certain evil deeds that 
we count them beneath us. The natural 
and proper element of human nature, 
of which an evil pride is the perversion, 
is self-esteem. Who can deny that there 
is a proper estimate for each man to 
put upon himself, — one which is simply 
true and just, and which is necessary to 
efficient action ? Can humility be the 
belief of a lie ? Such it would be, did it 
require us to form an under-estimate of 
ourselves, quite contrary to fact. In 
order to be humble, must a skilful me- 
chanic deny his skill, and proclaim or 



248 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

deem himself incompetent ? Is it pride 
for a teacher to think that he is more 
intelligent than his pupils ; or for a par- 
ent to assume to be wiser than his chil- 
dren ? Humility is not the denial of 
truth, nor is pride its assertion. We 
cannot avoid knowing that in certain 
respects we surpass some other men ; and 
there is no pride in quietly acting upon 
the knowledge, for necessary purposes. 

Pride is cherishing an overestimate of 
our relative importance, involving a cor- 
responding depreciation of others, ac- 
companied by neglect of them or con- 
tempt for them. It is self-worship, and 
thus a species of idolatry. Humility, on 
the other hand, is a willingness to pass 
at our real worth, whatever that may be, 
— a readiness to take the precise place 
which God has assigned to us, not envy- 



VICTORY OVER PRIDE, 249 

ing those who seem to be in a superior 
position, or despising those below us, or 
striving to mount higher than God's pro- 
vidence and our own true capacity and 
usefulness indicate. Inasmuch as men 
usually decide such points by sheer will, 
determined to subordinate all they can 
to their own advancement, and as the 
best are tempted to overestimate their 
natural powers, their acquired talents, 
and their excellence of character, and 
thus to strive unwisely for high positions, 
and, in case of failure, to fall into unhappi- 
ness and censure of others, the Scriptures 
properly warn against pride, and urge to 
a " lowliness of mind," which shall be 
ready " to esteem others better than 
themselves." That is, love will be so 
fearful of unduly depreciating others, 
and of exalting self, that it will prefer 



250 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

to cherish a high judgment of them, and 
a low estimate of self. Indeed, when 
the dangers which throng around pride 
are realized, — the unloveliness of dis- 
position, the jealousy, the ambition, the 
disappointments, the unrest, the strife, 
the hatred, — nothing seems more rea- 
sonable than the injunction, " Be not 
high-minded, but fear." 

Adversity tests us in respect to our 
;ride. We may not have suspected it ; 
for it is an insidious sin, and has great 
skill in putting on virtue's garb, assum- 
ing to be only a proper self-respect. 
But when our plans fail, when our am- 
bitions are frustrated, when we do not 
gain the position or the praise we 
have coveted, and lose, perhaps, even 
that which we have enjoyed, then we 
awake to the fact that pride has had a 



VICTORY OVER PRIDE, 251 

Strong hold in our heart. It is a time 
of searching with a Christian, in which 
he humbles himself before God, and 
seeks forgiveness for having desired and 
sought human honor, instead of quietly 
accepting such position as God might 
see wise to assign. It is a great victory, 
to be so much more concerned as to the 
divine opinion, and to be so fully satis- 
fied to please God and to be used by 
him, in any capacity, to work out his 
wise and good will, that little anxiety is 
felt as to the highness or lowness of our 
position in the eyes of men. Pride cares 
for this latter, because it works for self , 
and not for God, and is intent on its 
own honor rather than on the divine 
glory. 

Hence pride may pervert even actual 
facts of personal superiority to others, 



252 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

by omitting to trace them to God, and 
to consecrate them to his service, and 
by feeding one's self-admiration with 
them. If the faculties which we possess, 
and the virtues we acquire, are recog- 
nized by us in simplicity of spirit, hon- 
estly but humbly, intelligently but lov- 
ingly, and are ascribed to divine grace, 
they will do us no harm in the recogni- 
tion. But it is dangerous to dwell on 
such facts of comparison, and Satan will 
be quite ready to lead the way thither. 
It is much safer to meditate on our faults 
and follies, on our errors and sins, and 
to think how much we need forgiveness 
for the evil which we have done, and for 
the good which we have left undone. 
When pride becomes a self-conceit as to 
our attainments in holiness, it is some- 
times called spiritual pride, and it then 



VICTORY OVKR PRIDE, 253 

falls into the singular contradiction of 
being proud of one's humility ! 

The victory over pride will be gained 
in proportion as we place God above 
self, and his judgment above human ap- 
probation, and exercise such faith in his 
Fatherly love and wise providence, as to 
be quite content to take any work or 
place he chooses to appoint. It is a 
blessed experience to be so emptied of 
self-seeking as to be able to say with 
the Psalmist, " Lord, my heart is not 
haughty, nor mine eyes lofty ; neither do 
I exercise myself in matters too high for 
me. Surely I have behaved and quieted 
myself as a child that is weaned of his 
mother ; my soul is even as a weaned 
child." Not a little of the "hurt" feel- 
ing which many Christians have, is 
simply wounded pride. A humble soul 



254 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

would have taken no offence, would have 
perceived no slight, would have missed 
no commendation. 

^* Oh, learn that it is only by the lowly 
The paths of peace are trod ! 
If thou wouldst keep thy garments white and holy, 
Walk humbly with thy God. 

" The lowly spirit God hath consecrated 
As his abiding rest : 
An angel by some patriarch's tent hath waited, 
When kings had no such guest." 



CHAPTER XXV. 

VICTORY OVER ANXIETY. 

"XT 7HO of US has not something of 
^ ^ the nature of Martha ? — that 
saint " careful and troubled about many 
things," and who, probably, was not en- 
tirely relieved by the assurance of Jesus, 
that "but one thing is needful." The 
human 'mind is never content with the 
present, and, in a sense, never ought to 
be. It was made for progress, and it 
has knowledge of a future. Therein it 
differs from lower natures, which live 
only in the present, taking no note of 
time, and having no care for the mor- 
row. The bird sings, and the ox grazes, 
heedless of what is to be. But this 

255 



256 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

marks the inferior order of being. Man 
leads a higher life, and has the idea of 
time, past, present, and future. He has 
foresight and imagination, and, in a 
measure, can anticipate what is to come. 
It is a necessity laid upon him, to plan 
for the future. This is not only the 
prompting of his natural instincts, and 
of his individual necessities, but it is a 
duty imposed by his relations to others, 
who are dependent upon him, and for 
whose ever-recurring wants he must 
provide. 

But then foresight, imagination, and 
plan are apt to develop anxiety. Indeed, 
it might be asked how anxiety is to be 
avoided, when the elements of calcula- 
tion for the future are uncertain, and 
are largely beyond our individual control ? 
When important results cannot be made 



VICTORY OVER A.iXIETY 257 

sure, how shall a sensitive nature not be 
anxious until events are determined ? 
And, possibly, it will be claimed that anxi- 
ety is ];easonable and unavoidable, when 
disasters plainly impend, and one knows 
not how to avert them. At such a time 
all one's personal hopes and fears, all 
one's love for wife and children, all 
one's concern for truth, righteousness, 
and the church of Christ, conspire to 
creatte a soul-absorbing anxiety. 

And so it happens, that the world is 
full of anxious -men and women ; who 
carry heavy burdens of care, heave deep 
sighs of solicitude, and gaze earnestly 
and sadly towards the future. Thoughts 
of the morrow will not allow them to 
enjoy to-day. It may be the merchant, 
apprehensive of the disappointment of 
his hopes in a business venture j or the 
17 



258 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

laborer, out of employment and with a 
family to support ; or a clerk, likely to 
lose a situation ; or a minister, who, in 
parish work, fears failure where he 
looked for success ; or a wife, who shares 
the varying feelings as well as fortunes 
of her husband ; or a mother, who dreads 
the issue of a child's illness, or the crisis 
of a son's character ; or a sufferer from 
disease, who anticipates the possibility 
of years of pain and perhaps of poverty. 
Sometimes the fact reveals itself in the 
face ; more often it hides in the heart. 
Neither men nor women tell of their 
deepest anxieties. They meet others 
with a smile, and engage pleasantly in 
the chit-chat of daily life, yet are con- 
scious, the while, of an inward pang, 
of a dark foreboding, of a torturing fear. 
Is there relief from this state of mind ? 



VICTORY OVER ANXIET\. 259 

Can there be, in this respect, a victory 
for the Christian? Does not anxiety 
belong to our nature, circumstanced as 
it now is ? If we are " not to boast of 
to-morrow," because we " know not what 
a day may bring forth," does it not 
follow, for the same reason, that we 
must feel apprehensive as to its possible 
developments? To such inquiries the 
Scriptures give a plain answer. They 
not only promise a spiritual deliverance 
from this enemy of our peace, but insist 
that victory is our duty. They also tell 
us that faith in God is the weapon which 
secures the victory. What other can be 
the meaning of Jesus, when he says, 
"Take, therefore, no thought for the 
morrow : for the morrow shall take 
thought for the things of itself. Suf- 
ficient unto the day is the evil thereof " ? 



26o SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

His reason for this dissuasive from 
anxious, desponding, brooding thought, 
is previously expressed, in his argument 
from God's care of the birds and of the 
lilies, — which ought to assure us of his 
greater willingness to provide food and 
raiment for his children, — and in the 
direct assertion, "Therefore take no 
thought, saying, what shall we eat? or 
what shall we drink ? or wherewithal 
shall we be clothed ? (for after all these 
things do the Gentiles seek :) for your 
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
need of all these things." 

The argument is simply this : we are 
not left to oux own wisdom and strength, 
in providing for the future ; but we have 
a heavenly Father, able and willing to 
supply all our true wants. If we believe 
this truth, and put firm trust in our 



VICTORY OVER ANXIETY, 261 

Father, anxiety will necessarily cease. 
Why are not our children deeply con- 
cerned lest next week, or next month, 
they should not have food and clothing 
and home? Why do they not move 
solemnly through the house, or walk 
thoughtfully along the streets, fearful 
lest shortly their wants should be unsup- 
plied ? Because they have faith in their 
parents : they believe fully in a mother's 
love and in a father's ability. It ought not 
to be a rare attainment in piety, though 
plainly it is such, to lose one's apprehen- 
sions of earthly evil, in the sweet recog- 
nition of God's fatherly care. Paul 
writes, " I would have you without 
carefulness," — which does not meai?. 
without reasonable prudence and pre- 
caution, but without a mind full of care, 
weighed down with forebodings of evil. 



262 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

In a similar spirit he says, " Be careful 
for nothing ; but in every thing, by prayer 
and supplication with thanksgiving, let 
your requests be made known unto God ; 
and the peace of God, which passeth all 
understanding, shall keep your hearts 
and minds through Christ Jesus." 

Even under the Old Testament, faith 
was the instrument of victory in the 
conflict with anxiety. Who does not 
call to mind the Psalmist's words ? 
" Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? 
and why art thou disquieted within me ? 
Hope thou in God ; for I shall yet praise 
him, who is the health of my counte- 
nance and my God." iind how beauti- 
fully the New Testament lays the basis 
for such faith, in the declaration, " And 
we know that all things work together 
for gd'od to them that love God." Yes, 



VICTORY OVER ANXIETY, 263 

" we know " it ; but alas ! too often we 
forget it, and, in forgetting it, lose our 
comfort and our hope, and actually mis- 
take some of God's " good things " for 
things altogether evil. " All these 
things are against me,'' said the patri- 
arch Jacob, in an hour of despondent 
unbelief. He long since learned better. 
Anxiety is natural ; only, grace is higher 
than nature ! Men of the world, recog- 
nizing no Father in heaven, may well be 
weighed down with care ; but of the 
saint it is said, "Thou wilt keep him 
in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed 
on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee. 
Trust ye in the Lord forever ; for in the 
Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." 
And so we may exultingly sing, with 
Faber, — 



^ 264 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

" I have no cares, O blessed Will ! 
For all my cares are thine: 
I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou 
Hast made thy triumphs mine. 

** And when it seems no chance or change 

From grief can set me free, 
Hope finds its strength in helplessness, 
And gayly waits on thee.'^ 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

VICTORY OVER SENSITIVENESS. 

'nr^HATis a grand attainment, vhen one 
reaches the spiritual equilibrium in 
which the soul appreciates criticism, but is 
not brought into bondage to it. There 
can be no improvement without the aid 
of criticism. Ignorance, habit, and self- 
esteem blind one to his faults. At first, 
in every department of action, every one is 
a novice, and must be taught by the more 
experienced. He has not sufficient knowl 
edge to understand when he is at fault. 
The standard of judgment rises with 
progress in intelligence, with increase of 
skill. And then that to which one is 
accustomed wears the aspect of propri- 

265 



266 SPIRITUAL VICTORY,' 

ety, even though it be sadly defective ; so 
that sharp criticism by another is needed 
to startle the mind into a recognition of 
the truth. And how slow human nature 
is to admit personal defects, whether of 
beauty, of strength, of talent, of learning, 
of taste, or of character ! It injures one's 
self-esteem to be made conscious of 
errors and defects ; and, as that is an un- 
pleasant frame of mind, it is usually 
avoided. Self-complacency is a happier 
state for the time being; though in the. 
end it may bring upon one a rude and 
even fatal shock. But it hinders pro- 
gress. As only the consciously sick seek 
a physician, so only those who recognize 
their own faults strive to improve. That 
was a most rational prayer of the Psalm- 
ist : " Who can understand his errors ? 
(Cleanse thou me from secret faults." 



SENSITIVENESS. 267 

But while we thus need the suggestions 
of others, to perfect both our character 
and work, and should not be above 
learning even from the accusations of 
our enemies, we cannot easily avoid 
being sensitive to blame. The good 
opinion of our fellow-men is justly to be 
prized. It is a reward for past effort ; it 
is a stimulus to future endeavor. It 
brings present happiness, and inspires a 
joyous hope. It strengthens self-respect, 
and it draws us into the society of those 
who seem to be pleased with our persons 
and our character. Blame is therefore 
repressing in its influence, chilling one's 
aspirations, and leading him to withdraw 
from intercourse with others. To some 
very sensitive souls it comes like an early 
frost to tender plants, cutting them down 
ere they have acquired strength and ripe 



268 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

ness. It is natural, then, to shrink from 
reprehension. When it does not excite 
anger, it produces grief. If we are wise 
enough not to give way to resentment, 
we may yet be weak enough to yield to 
discouragement. 

But sensitiveness is most keen and dis- 
tressing, when a conviction is felt of the 
injustice of the blame. To be sharply 
criticised when one has done well ; to 
have unreal faults pointed out, whether 
from ignorance or malevolence ; to know 
that genuine talent and skill are unappre- 
ciated, and that their reward is grudged ; 
to have motives aspersed, when they have 
been pure, — that is the trial of trials. 
To this form of mental suffering our 
Saviour must have been pre-eminently 
exposed, for his life was one long conflict 
with misunderstanding and malice. No- 



SENSITIVENESS. 269 

body properly appreciated him ; not even 
his disciples ; not even John. And the 
experience of Paul was similar. No 
apostle labored so abundantly, or with 
such self-denial ; and none was so mis- 
conceived and abused, whether by Jews, 
Gentiles, or professed Christians. Every 
saint is put into this furnace, sooner or 
later, and the flames of it are hot. Many, 
indeed, furnish part of the fuel by their 
over-sensitiveness to even the least mis- 
conception, as also by a blindness to 
their own defects, which leads them im- 
properly to impute injustice to the criti- 
cisms of others. 

There is a spiritual victory, however, 
to be won upon this very field. Christ 
had a peace too deep to be disturbed by 
human censure ; even if it be admitted 
that he could not but feel a momentary 



270 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

sorrow, when men I lamed where they 
should have praised. And it was because 
his faith in his Father was so perfect, 
that he could rise above the influence of 
human opinion, disregard equally man's 
plaudits and censures, and, as Peter 
phrased it, " commit himself to Him who 
judge th righteously." And this blissful 
composure the Saviour imparts to the 
true believer, in accordance with the as- 
surance, " Peace I leave with you ; my 
peace I give unto you." He it was who 
enabled Paul to overcome his natural 
sensitiveness in this direction: so that 
the apostle could say, "With me it is a 
very small thing that I should be judged 
of you, or of man's judgment ; yea, I 
judge no': my own self. . . . But he that 
judge th me is the Lord." A genuine 
Christian faith refuses to live merely in 



SENSITIVENESS. 2 7 1 

the present, and to recognize only men. 
It never loses sight of the glorious here- 
after, and of the Master who soon shall 
say, "Well done, good and faithful ser- 
vant: enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." Do we not perceive, on reflec- 
tion, that the painful sensitiveness to 
human censure, or to a failure to appre- 
ciate our efforts, is owing to our undue 
regard for human opinion? We seek 
our happiness too much in man's favor. 
Can we not rise to the experience which 
enabled the Psalmist to say, " Thou art 
my portion, O my God." " Whom have 
I in heaven but thee ; and there is none 
upon the earth whom I desire besides 
thee " ? In that case we should not live 
upon the breath of human applause, and 
die when it was withheld. At best, man 
is ignorant and is fickle j he oftentimes 



272 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

condemns when he should approve, and, 
again, wearying of praise, unjustly cen- 
sures those who have steadily persevered 
in good. Let us not make ourselves 
dependent, then, upon his approbation. 
If we do not too eagerly expect it, we 
shall not be overmuch cast down if it be 
withheld. Jesus warned us against dan- 
ger on this side, when he said to the op- 
posing Jews, " How can ye believe, who 
receive honor one of another, and seek 
not the honor that cometh from God 
only?" Our victory over sensitiveness 
to the blame or unappreciativeness of 
others must come through singleness of 
aim and simplicity of spirit. Be it our 
one purpose to please God ! Be it joy 
enough to have the sweet consciousness 
that such is our intent, and the quiet 
assurance, that, in so living, he accepts 
us in Christ ! 



SEN'S IT. VE.VESS. 273 

*' Lord, I cast my care on thee; 
I triumph and adore. 
Henceforth my great concern shall be 
To love and please thee more." 



CHAPTER XXVIL 

VICTORY IN DETAIL. 

A TRUE soldier obeys orders in the 
minutest particular. Military life 
subjects every thing to control. How 
shall the Christian know that he is carry- 
ing out the will of his commander in the 
details of life ? The New Testament 
contains a passage, familiar to Christian 
ears, which concisely states the true rule 
of action in these words: "Whether, 
therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever 
ye do, do all to the glory of God." This 
seems to be a sufficiently simple direc- 
tion, and yet not a few have been puz- 
zled by it. The practical difficulty has 
been, to keep this motive always in 
274 



VICTORY IN DETAIL. 275 

mind ; to bethink one's self of the divine 
glory in connection with the thousand 
shifting circumstances of life, which de- 
velop feeling and require numerous decis- 
sions on subordinate grounds. Ministers 
have sometimes preached, or have been 
understood to preach, to the great confu- 
sion of mind of their hearers, that, the 
only reason for action being the glory of 
God, no one ought to take pleasure in an 
amusement, or to enjoy an article of 
food, because of any attractive quality in 
it. To play ball from any love of the 
sport, or to eat a dish of oysters from 
any relish for the food, is said to be sin- 
ful : the act must be done only for the 
glory of God. "But," say many con- 
scientious souls, in sore trouble under 
such seemingly harsh and impracticable 
directions, " we find that these acts are 



276 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

instinctive, and we perform them in re- 
sponse to natural desires and tastes, 
without pausing each time to summon up 
a distinct motive connected with the 
divine glory. We sincerely mean to live 
for God in all respects, and to avoid 
whatever he forbids ; and yet sometimes 
busy hours pass with no distinct thought 
of God in the mind. What are we to 
do?" 

The language of the preachers referred 
to is not happy, even if their meaning be 
in the main correct. It were better, did 
they say that no act should be performed 
from any motive which is not subordinat- 
ed to the purpose to do all things to the 
glory of God. A distinction should be 
drawn between generic and specific mo- 
tive. A young man in Chicago learns 
that his father is ill in Massachusetts, 



VICTORY IN DETAIL, 277 

and starts immediately to see him. The 
generic reason or motive for the journey 
is found in love for his father. This 
really leads to every act necessary to 
reach his bedside, — the packing of a 
trunk, the purchase of a ticket, the step- 
ping into the car, the persistent riding in 
it for two days, &c. Nevertheless, it is 
quite possible, that during those two 
days, for an hour at a time he may not 
think of his father, while he is reading a 
book or a newspaper, or is gazing at the 
scenery, or is in conversation with his 
fellow travellers. So also he will not 
directly connect with his father his en- 
joyment of the meals by the way, and 
many other incidental facts. Yet it is 
plain, that deep *in the soul, below all 
these specific acts with their particular 
motives, lies the comprehensive, deter- 



278 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

'mining purpose to go to his father. So 
in the case of another young man, in the 
same car, who is on his way to college 
to gain an education. In one sense, he 
rides, he eats, he sleeps, because it is 
pleasant to go to a certain place, to sat- 
isfy hunger, and to refresh a weary body j 
but, in a higher sense, he does all these 
as means to carry out his grand purpose 
to be educated. 

When Jefferson Davis became a traitor 
to his country, and the head of the rebel- 
lion, his main political purpose was cor- 
rupt; and this imparted a taint of treason 
to all his acts. His life was devoted to 
disloyal aims ; and thus his walking and 
riding, his eating and sleeping, his read- 
ing and writing, were but parts of a per- 
manent purpose of rebellion, and how- 
ever harmless as isolated acts, and 



VICTORY IN DETAIL, 279 

whatever he might be thinking about at 
the moment, were guilty as related to 
the unworthy object to which he had 
devoted himself. In like manner, Abra- 
ham Lincoln was serving his country, 
not only when he was holding cabinet 
consultations, or visiting the camps, or 
writing messages to Congress, but in all 
his deeds, from putting on his clothes 
in the morning to the taking them off at 
night. And if, at certain hours, he 
walked or rode for recreation, or enjoyed 
a dinner or a lively conversation with his 
friends, neither the act, nor his enjoy- 
ment of it, was at all inconsistent with his 
patriotism ; for that virtue covered his 
entire life. 

This will enable us to understand that 
a Christian may honestly consecrate his 
life to God, and purpose to do all things 



28o SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

to the divine glory, and yet not literally 
be thinking of God each moment, or be 
consciously raising a question about the 
divine glory in each specific act. An 
honest, generic motive thus to live will 
naturally underlie and shape the details 
of life as they occur, and will not be in 
the least degree inconsistent with such 
enjoyment as naturally pertains to them. 
For did not God benevolently create 
our natural desires, and provide objects 
to gratify them ? Does not his glory re- 
quire, on the one hand, that our entire 
nature should be developed, and, on the 
other, that all his gifts should be grate- 
fully and joyfully appropriated ? 

A wise and benevolent teacher says to 
his faithful scholars, " Take to-morrow as 
a holiday : you have studied well for 
many weeks, and now I want you to have 



VICTORY IN DETAIL, 281 

a good time. Nothing will please me 
more than to see you happy at your 
games all the day." It will be no dis- 
honor to the teacher, should the scholars 
during that holiday not once think of 
their studies, and only remember him for 
the moment, as the kind bestower of that 
season of sport. He will not question 
them, the day after, to know whether 
they paused before each bat-stroke to 
recall his memory ; or whether they took 
delight in playing ball because they 
liked the game, or only because they 
wished to honor him. There would be 
no incompatibility between the two 
things. A mechanic may take great 
pleasure in his work for its own sake ; 
and yet his aim may be to please his 
employer, or to earn money with which 
to support his family. An artist may 



282 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

delight in art for its own charm, and yet 
pursue it as the vocation to which God 
calls him. 

The Scriptures mean that we shall 
honestly seek to please God in our whole 
lives. That purpose may underlie our 
conduct, shaping all that we do, even 
though for hours it come not directly 
into consciousness. A Christian student 
none the less acts for the glory of God, 
because he cannot think of him in the 
midst of an algebraic process or of a 
geometrical demonstration. He may 
glorify him also in his amusements ; 
though he enjoy the amusement for its 
own sake, while yet employing it as a 
needed recreation for subsequent study. 
What God wants is a spirit of consecra- 
tion, of joy, of gratitude ; that we shall 
sincerely mean to please him by our 



VICTORY IN DETAIL, 283 

manner of life at all times. Thus will 
our spiritual victory be carried into the 
minutest details of life, " casting down 
imaginations and every high thing that 
exalteth itself against the knowledge of 
God, and bringing into captivity every 
thought to the obedience of Christ." 

" Oh that every deed and word 

May proclaim how good thou art ! 
Holiness unto the Lord, 
Now be written on each heart." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

VICTORY ON THE FIELD OF BUSINESS. 

OPIRITUAL victory must be won 
^'^"^ precisely where the providence of 
God may choose to order the battle. The 
saint, cannot choose his battle-field, ex- 
cept in a very limited way ; as when he 
avoids dangerous temptations which no 
duty requires him directly to face, and 
which prudence and self-knowledge tell 
him it would be presumption and no: 
faith to encounter. As God orders our 
lot from day to day, when we trust our- 
selves to his care, so he assigns, inciden- 
tally, the times and places of conflict. 
At each such time and place we may 
expect his presence and help, and may 
284 



ON THE FIELD OF BUSINESS, 285 

gird ourselves with courage and hope 
for the conflict. 

Perhaps the most common and dan- 
gerous battle is that waged on the field 
of secular business. There Satan has 
strongly intrenched himself. There his 
forces are numerous, and his natural ad- 
vantages great. Having ruled in this 
realm with small interruption, he has 
arranged the usages and maxims of 
business to favor the principle of self- 
pleasing, and to rule out God. And yet 
the Christian may not pass around this 
battle-field. His way lies directly across 
it, at whatever hazard. Industry is the 
law of life. Work is duty ; and work 
must be located by human necessities, 
not by our desires. And so a saint must 
be such in the shop, the store, the office^ 
as well as in the church edifice. In 



286 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

fact, his saintship must vindicate itself 
conspicuously in secular affairs, in order 
to prove its health, its robustness, its 
very reality. Failure in that sphere- 
would be fatal ; for it would be failure 
in the place where the larger part of 
one's life must be spent, and where the 
great mass of men must have their 
moral conflict. 

It would never answer to have piety 
associated only with the life of a recluse, 
— a hermit, a monk, a scholar in his 
study, — or even with that of a clergy- 
man devoted wholly to spiritual thought 
and work. The appearance would be 
as if religion were not meant to be the 
common inheritance and joy of the 
whole human family, but to be the pos- 
session of a few privileged characters. 
It might seem as if God could not save 



ON THE FIELD OF BUSINESS. 287 

from all sin, but only from some sins. 
In the old wars of Israel with the hea- 
then, the latter, it will be remembered; 
imagined at one time that Jehovah was 
a God of the hills, and could give suc- 
cess to his people only in a mountain- 
fight, but had no power to help on the 
plain. It would wear that semblance, 
surely, in the spiritual conflict, if God's 
grace triumphed in the hill-region of 
churches, but not in the plain-country 
of secular business, — if it could make 
holy monks, priests, ministers, but not 
holy laborers and mechanics, holy mer- 
chants and physicians, holy lawyers and 
statesmen. 

The Bible teaches that piety is. equally 
to characterize all classes, of whatever 
rank or occupation. Its representative 
saints were seldom men of seclusion. 



288 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

Elijah and John the Baptist were such, 
to fit them for a special mission ; hj^t 
usually the holy men of old were shep- 
herds, agriculturists, warriors, kings, 
statesmen, and men of other busy secu- 
lar occupations ; as the very names of 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, 
David, Nehemiah, and Daniel will sug- 
gest. Go back even to the life of 
Enoch, who is so eminent in holy char- 
acter as having " walked with God," and 
the brief biography before his glorious 
translation implies that he was no re- 
cluse. His was not a celibate saintship, 
or a piety nurtured in privacy ; as is seen 
from the simple fact that he was a man 
of family, and "begat sons and daugh- 
ters." Of course he needed to labor 
industriously for their support; and he 
was able to do this, and yet maintain a 



ON THE FIELD OF BUSINESS. 289 

consistent walk with God, and that amid 
prevailing wickedness. So faith must be 
compatible with pursuing a secular call- 
ing, and the victories which it wins in 
that sphere will be of special honor to 
religion. Men of the world will admit 
that a clergyman may be a consistent 
saint, because they think (quite mistak- 
enly) that his spiritual occupation ex- 
empts him from temptation, and almost 
necessitates godliness. But they doubt 
the value and power of divine grace 
amid the selfishness and corruption of 
business life. Hence nothing can be so 
impressive as the example of a devoted 
Christian who is also successful in secu- 
lar affairs. How shall this victory be 
won ? 

First of all, consecrati )n to God must 
be as complete in a business-Christian 
19 



290 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

as in a minister. He must go into busi- 
ness for the same reason that the minis- 
ter preaches the gospel ; to wit, that 
God has called him to that life-work. 
He is to accept his business as the 
sphere in which to be holy and useful. 
He must not take a merely selfish view 
of it, as though it were only a means of 
getting a livelihood, regarding it as an 
ox views a pasture-ground. He must 
not make it a tool of personal ambition, 
hoping to become wealthy and influen- 
tial. He acts for God in his sphere, as 
the clergyman does in his. Both should 
have one spirit, and are under the same 
law to Christ. This idea kept in mind 
will be a perpetual safeguard. It will 
lead to industry, honesty, truthfulness ; 
it will save from the reckless gambling 
spirit; it will induce generosity in the 



ON THE FIELD OF BUSINESS. 291 

use of property for charitable purposes. 
No man can consciously do business for 
God and not find it a means of grace ; 
for, in so doing, he is acting upon the 
very precept of the apostle : " Whether, 
therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever 
ye do, do all to the glory of God." 

God's special blessing must be sought 
continually in connection with business 
cares and labors. Faith must make its 
appeal to the heavenly Father, to keep 
the soul amid the many and powerful 
temptations which are found in all the 
walks of secular life. Recourse must be 
had to the sympathy and aid of that 
Jesus who for thirty years quietly fol- 
lowed the occupation of a carpenter, 
and who well knows the trials which 
belong to the poor in their struggles to 
obtain the necessaries of life. As noth- 



292 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

ing is more regular than business, claim- 
ing as it does steady attention for many 
hours each day, so the Christian must be 
regular in seeking divine help for the 
discharge of • its many duties. His 
closet must witness daily supplication 
for the needed grace, and often must an 
ejaculatory prayer go up at the very mo- 
ment of temptation. And no petition 
has more reason for faith in a favorable 
answer, since God must surely care for 
that which occupies so large a part of 
the lives of his people. There will come 
also special occasions of trial, when the 
man of business will be at his wit's end, 
and when God only can help and give 
peace amid crushing burdens of respon- 
sibility and inrushing tides of anxiety. 
These are the times when Satan presses 
upon the sou] for its overthrow, sug- 



ON THE FIELD OF BUSINESS, 293 

gesting plans of evil and doubts of 
God's good providence, and when the 
soul must consequently draw very near 
to God, and cast itself unconditionally 
upon the promises. 

And, in addition to these specific re- 
quests, the Christian must balance the 
worldly tendencies of business pursuits 
by a careful use of the means of grace. 
If his business presses, he is the last 
man that should neglect family worship 
or the weekly prayer-meeting. He must 
hold on to the invisible world by all 
possible means, and must keep open the 
channels by which spiritual influences 
flow in upon the heart. And this is the 
more evident, when we remember that 
the business is really God's business, in 
which he must be constantly consulted ; 
and that he is too reasonable and just 



294 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

to require of us such a supreme devo- 
tion to it as shall conflict with the duty 
and privilege of prayer in the family, or 
of. attendance at the church-meetings. 
The Bible must be the business man's 
daily counsellor. Some form of Christ- 
ian work in the church or Sunday school 
will aid in the same direction. Through 
such means he will preserve the tone of 
his mind amid the excitement of secu- 
lar life, and will live in a true sense for 
two worlds. So taught Wesley in his 
" Working-Hymn : " — 

' ' Son of the carpenter, receive 

This humble work of mine ; 
Worth to my meanest labor give, 

By joining it to thine. 

" Thy bright example I pursue; 

To thee in all things rise ; 
And all I think or speak or do 

Is OD ^ great sacrifice. 



ON THE FIELD OF BUSINESS. 295 

'^ Careless through outward cares I go, 

From all distraction free : 
My hands are but engaged below, 

My heart is still with thee." 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

VICTORY ACCORDING TO LAW. 

TT has been ^ abundantly shown by all 
• that has been said in the foregoing 
chapters of this book, that spiritual vic- 
tory is not possible to us under merely 
legal influences. The law operates, in 
the case of a fallen nature, to reveal 
duty, and, at the same time, to condemn 
for the failure to perform it. It arouses 
the conscience to an increased sense of 
sin, but brings no proffer of aid in the 
conflict. It tells the man of the victory 
which he should have gained ; it mortifies 
him by an unsparing exposure of his 
defeat; it places in clear view his re- 
sponsibility and his moral weakness ; 
2q6 



ACCORDING 7 LAW, 297 

but it utters no word of hope, brings to 
bear no fresh motive, and has no prom- 
ise of divine aid. The gospel alone 
meets the exigency by its new reveL.tion 
of God in Christ, and by its gracious 
invitations and pledges, even as Paul 
declares, " For (what the law could not 
do, in that it was weak through the flesh), 
God sending his own Son in the likeness 
of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the 
flesh ; that the righteousness of the law 
might be fulfilled in us who walk not 
after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 

But these very words prove, that while 
the victory cannot be by the law, it 
yet must be according to the law ; that 
is, precisely the same result in character 
must be secured which the law aimed to 
secure. The method is changed, not the 
end. Holiness is immutable. God 



298 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

must require it, whether under a legal 
or under a [gracious economy. There 
can be no real victory but in subduing 
whatever is contrary to the will of God 
as expressed in his eternal law of love, 
which is the transcript of his own nature. 
No soldier in war, however valiant he 
may appear, fights to the acceptance of 
his general, who does not conform to^ 
the rules of military discipline, and 
whose every act does not aid in reaching 
the result for which the campaign is 
planned. The apostle brings out the 
same idea, when, referring to the contests 
in the Grecian games, he says, " And if 
a man also strive for masteries, yet is 
he not crowned, except he strive law- 
fully," or according to the rules laid 
down for the combatants. Our spiritual 
victory must then be one in the way 



ACCORDING TO LAW. 299 

which God appoints. Yet there are 
those who imagine that attainment to a 
perfect state changes the relation of 
believers to the moral law, so that it is 
no longer the rule of conduct, the uni- 
versal standard of right. Thus we hear 
of " Antinomian Perfectionists," in our 
own times, and of similarly characterized 
mystics in the middle ages. 

In every age of the church there has 
been a tendency to " turn the grace of 
God into lasciviousness," and to "use 
liberty for an occasion to the flesh." In 
escaping from bondage to the Mosaic 
law, early believers were tempted to 
think that there was no Christian law. 
When Paul said, " Ye are not under the 
law, but under grace," and " If ye be 
led of the Spirit, ye are not under the 
law," they imagined, in some cases, not 



300 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

only that they could not be justified by 
the law, but also that no rule of holy 
living now remained. This brought out 
earnest protests from that apostle, who 
wrote, " Do we then make void the law, 
through faith ? God forbid ; yea, we 
establish the law ; " and James thought 
it necessary to argue that there was an 
obvious sense in which " justification " 
could not be separated from "works." 
These Antinomian tendencies, which set 
law and gospel in antagonism, are always 
lurking around the subject of salvation 
by grace. As if there could be any sal- 
vation which did not save from sin ! 
As if the very object of divine grace 
were not to regenerate and perfect charac- 
ter ! As if pardon were not always 
conditioned upon repentance as well as 
upon faith, and as if it did not constitute 



ACCORDING TO LAW, 301 

an additional motive to purity ! Yet 
how often men rest securely in sin, in 
the expectation that their belief that 
Christ died for them, and will by his 
grace save them, would avail to bring 
his merit to bear for their justification ! 

But holiness cannot change its nature 
under any dispensation ; nor can that be 
a true gospel which does not distinctly 
recognize the one unalterable law of 
duty. The central idea of the divine 
law is 4ove ; and what a wise love for all 
beings in their various wants and rela- 
tionships requires of us in this life, God 
indicates in the specific precepts of the 
Bible. He also directs, in his Word, as 
to the outward means to be used in our 
condition of weakness and danger, to 
nourish the principle of love, to avail 
ourselves of the promised aid of the 



302 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

Holy Spirit, and to strengthen our faith 
in Christ as our Example, our Teacher, 
and our Redeemer. These are such 
exercises as prayer in secret and in 
public, the use of psalms and hymns, 
attendance upon worship and the minis- 
try of the Word, the study of the Scrip- 
tures, the celebration of ordinances, the 
observance of the Lord's Day, and en- 
gagement in labors of love for the 
bodies and souls of our fellow-men. All 
who imagine that they have come into a 
spiritual state which absolves from the 
duty, or relieves from the necessity, of 
carefully attending to these things, are 
deluded. They are assuming to be holy 
without holiness ; to be living righteous 
lives, without any standard of right ; to 
be maintaining a spiritual life, without 
using the means which God declares to 



ACCORDING TO LAW, 303 

be essential ; to be enjoying a victory, 
when the enemy is in the field in full 
force, and when they are not even armed 
with the weapons needful to resist his 
attack 1 

" Who keepeth not God's word, yet saith, 

I know the Lord, is wrong : 
In him is not that blessed faith 

Through which the truth is strong ; 
But he who hears and keeps the word, 

Is not of this world, but of God." 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE FINAL VICTORY. 

'T^HERE is a last conflict, and so 
there is to the Christian a final 
victory. When the battle has been 
gained in the fight with the allied forces, 
— the world, the flesh, and the devil ; 
when our tried, tempest-tossed human 
nature has found the peace and rest of 
faith in the Lord Jesus ; and when the 
days, months and years have been spent 
in such doing and enduring as our hea- 
venly Father may have appointed, — then 
comes the closing struggle. " The last 
enemy that shall be destroyed is death," 
says the received English version; but 
the original words are more terse : " The 
504 



THE FINAL VICTORY, 305 

last enemy shall be destroyed, — Death." 
We must face him when we have over- 
come all other foes. There he stands, 
to the natural eye grim and frightful ! 
How terrible in all ages he has seemed 
to poor mortals ! No one can escape 
the conflict ; for he strides, a giant, 
across our path, just at its end. Men 
usually turn pale when they see him, 
even at a distance ; and, in the close 
grapple, by what terror they are often 
overcome ! This is not unnatural, in cer- 
tain aspects of the case. Life must 
shrink from death, the negation of itself, 
the termination of its happy experiences, 
the interruption of its plans, the disap- 
pointment of its hopes, the sundering of 
its tenderest ties. And, in a spiritual 
view, a sinful life cannot calmly contem- 
plate a divine judgment tc which Death 
20 



3o6 SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

is felt to be related as the officer who 
drags the criminal before the tribunal of 
justice. And so men dread to die, and 
experience a straggle in preparing for 
the inevitable event. 

But on this, as on every other field, 
Christ is victor. The dawn of each 
Lord's Day assures us of this fact. It 
brings the Christian festival, — the Sun- 
day, the day of light, of joy, of hope, 
because the day of triumph. On "the 
first day of the week" it was, that the 
dead Jesus became the living Christ. 
Death could not hold him in its icy em- 
brace, could not bind him with its iron 
chains. He submitted to its power, on 
the cross, because he was a voluntary 
sacrifice for the world's sin \ now he as- 
serted his divine prerogative, rose in tri- 
umph, and dragged Death as a captive 



THE FINAL VICTORY, 307 

behind his car. And this victory was for 
his people as truly as for himself. He 
rose as the type and pledge of their res- 
urrection ; and faith in this fact lifts 
them, above the fear of death. Admira- 
bly is this set forth in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews : " Forasmuch, then, as the chil- 
dren are partakers of flesh and blood, he 
also himself likewise took part of the same, 
that through death he might destroy him 
that had the power of death, that is, the 
devil ; and deliver them who through 
fear of death were all their lifetime sub- 
ject to bondage." And how bold Paul 
is, speaking of " our Saviour Jesus Christ, 
who hath abolished death, and hath 
brought life and immortality to light 
through the gospel ! '' This was his ha- 
bitual feeling. He carried it about in 
his own breast. He inspired others with 



3o8 SPIRITUAL VICTORY, 

it. He claimed that in Christ was fulfilled 
the prophecy: "Death is swallowed up 
in victory." He challenges contradic- 
tion, and, as it were, taunts the old enemy 
with his weakness : " O Death, where 
is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy 
victory ? " He fairly shouts in his exul- 
tation : " Thanks be unto God, who giveth 
us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." Nor was this mere theory, or 
empty rhetoric, with him. He could af- 
firm, " For me to live is Christ, and to 
die is gain. ... having a desire to. de- 
part, and to be with Christ, which is far 
better." He could say in the face of 
persecution, " I am ready not to be bound 
only, but also to die at Jerusalem, for the 
name of the Lord Jesus." And when in 
prison at Rome, awaiting martyrdom, 
the victor ap<")stle exclaimed, " I am now 



THE FINAL VICTORY, 309 

ready to be offered, and the time of my 
departure is at hand. I have frmght a 
good fight, I have finished my course, I 
have kept the faith. Henceforth there 
is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
ness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, 
shall give me at that day; and not to 
me only, but unto them also that love 
his appearing." Yes, Paul was in sober 
earnest when he dared to say that Christ 
had "abolished death," madman as he 
must have seemed to all but the little 
band of believers. 

And now eighteen centuries have been 
accumulating their evidence to the same 
effect. The disciples of Jesus have 
gained great victories on this battle-field. 
Their last enemy has come upon them 
in many different ways and forms ; but, 
while destroying the body, he has had no 



3IO SPIRITUAL VICTORY. 

power over the soil. He has drawn 
near gradually, and tried to make him- 
self a terror for long months and years. 
He has come suddenly, to take the saint 
unawares, and to crush him with a single 
stroke. He has appeared as flood, as 
flame, as axe, as halter, as famine, as 
pestilence. It was in vain : defeat 
awaited him. Jesus was always at hand 
to protect his loved ones. With his sweet 
word of promise sounding in the ear, 
the rack itself was a bed of roses, the 
flames about the stake a chariot of fire 
for the ascending soul, and the crushing 
stones could only force from the dying 
lips the prayer, " Lord Jesus, receive my 
spirit." Ever since Jesus went before us 
through the dark valley, it has resounded 
with the triumphant songs of those who 
hear his voice, saving, "I am the resur- 



I 



THE FINAL VICTORY, 311 

rection and the life ; he that believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth 
in me shall never die." And so we shall 
reach the heavenly Canaan and the New 
Jerusalem, victors to the last ! 

" There is the throne of David ; 

And there, from toil released, 
The shout of them that triumph, 

The song of them that feast ; 
And they beneath their Leader, 

Who conquered in the fight. 
Forever and forever 

Are clad in robes of white." 



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